I 


as ' ; '  UNION 


\MES  SCHOULER 


Schouler's  History  of  the  United  States. 


NEW   AND   REVISED   EDITION. 


Vol.     I.  1783-1801.  RULE  OF  FEDERALISM 

Vol.    II.  1801-1817.  JEFFERSON  REPUBLICANS 

Vol.111.  1817-1831.  ERA  OF  GOOD  FEELING 

Vol.  IV.  1831-1847.  WHIGS  AND  DEMOCRATS 

Vol.   V.  1847-1861.  FREE  SOIL  CONTROVERSY 

Vol.  VI.  1861-1865.  THE  CIVIL  WAR 


By  the  Same  Author: 
THOMAS  JEFFERSON  (in  the  "Makers  of  America"  series). 

HISTORICAL  BRIEFS,  WITH  BIOGRAPHY. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  STUDIES,  STATE  AND  FEDERAL. 

EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION. 


Eighty  Years  of  Union 

Being  a  Short  History  of  the  United  States 
1783-1865 


By 

JAMES  SCHOULER 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD   &   COMPANY 
1903 


CONTENTS 


The  references  in  parenthesis  are  to  the  volume  and  pages  of 
the  original  History  of  the  United  States  from  which  extracts  are 
made  for  the  present  volume. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE 

§  I.  The  Thirteen  Confederate  States,  1783-87.— §  II.  The 
Constitutional  Convention,  May  14-September  17,  1787. — 
§  III.  A  More  Perfect  Union,  1787-1789. 

The  United  States  of  America  in  1783   (I,  1-5) I 

Hamilton  and  Madison  as  reformers  (I,  26-32) 4 

Origin  of  our  political  parties   (I,  53-60) 9 

Struggle  of  Federalists  and  Anti-Federalists  (I,  60-69) 12 

CHAPTER  II. 

FIRST  ADMINISTRATION   OF  GEORGE   WASHINGTON. 

§  I.  Period  of  First  Congress.  March  4,  1789-March  3,  1791. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Second  Congress.  March  4,  1791- 
March  3,  1793. 

Washington's  inauguration  at  New  York  (I,  84-89) 14 

The  First  Congress;  ceremonials,  etc.   (I,  117,  118) 20 

Appointments  and  executive  rules    (I,    119-124) 22 

Washington  as  President;  his  character  (I,  118-139) 25 

Franklin  and  the   Quaker  memorial    (I,   160-165) 35 

Executive  intercourse  with  the  Senate  (I,  179,  180) 35 

New  party  movements  and  leaders    (I,  219,  220) 36 


vi  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  III. 

PAGE 
SECOND   ADMINISTRATION   OF   GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Third  Congress.  March  4,  1793-March  3,  1795. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Fourth  Congress.  March  4,  1795- 
March  3,  1797- 

Immigration  and  the  pioneer  life    (I,  239-245) 39 

Philadelphia  as   capital;  yellow   fever    (I,   250-255) 45 

Politics  affected  by  European  war  (I,  259,  260) 50 

Jefferson  and   Hamilton   leave  cabinet    (I,  270-274) 50 

Jay's  treaty  with  England   (I,  308-31 1 ) 52 

Speech  of  Fisher  Ames  (I,  328,  329) 54 

Washington's  Farewell  Address  (I,  345,  346) 57 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  ADAMS. 

§  I.  Period  of  Fifth  Congress.  March  4,  1797-March  3,  1799. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Sixth  Congress.  March  4,  1799-March 
3,  1801. 

Adams  inaugurated   President   (I,   354-356) 59 

Naturalization,  Alien  and  Sedition  acts  (I,  410-413) 62 

Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions    (I,  434,  435) 64 

Party  cabals ;  death  of  Washington   (I,  462-464) 66 

Washington  City  the  capital   (I,  487-490) 68 

Tie  of  Jefferson  and  Burr;  House  elects  President  (I,  490- 

494)    69 

Adams's   administration   reviewed    (I,    505-512) 71 

Downfall  of  Federalist  party  (I,  512-514) 79 

CHAPTER  V. 

FIRST    ADMINISTRATION    OF    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Seventh  Congress.  March  4,  1801 -March  3, 
1803. — §  II.  Period  of  Eighth  Congress.  March  4,  1803- 
March  3,  1805. 

Jefferson's  inauguration  (II,  1-5) 83 

Appointments  to  office;   cabinet    (II,   6-15) 86 

Federalists  in  retirement    (II,  32,   33) 89 

The  Louisiana  purchase    (II,   52-58) 90 

Duel  and  death  of  Hamilton    (II,  70-74) 92 


CONTENTS  vii 


PAGE 

Secretaries  Madison  and  Gallatin   (II,  78-80) 96 

Territories  and  the  Indians    (II,  85) 98 

Jefferson  at  the  White  House  (II,  90-94) 99 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Ninth  Congress.  March  4,  i8o5-March  3,1807. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Tenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8o7-March 
3,  1809. 

British  impressment  and  search   (II,   115-118) 104 

Burr's  conspiracy  and  trial    (II,   133-138) 106 

Abolition   of   foreign   slave  trade    (II,    145-147) 108 

Napoleon  and  Great   Britain    (II,    174-176) 109 

Decrees  against  neutral   nations    (II,    176) in 

President   Jefferson's    embargo    (II,    180-183) 112 

Failure  of  embargo   (II,   197,   198,  217) 115 

Retirement  of  Jefferson   (II,  222-225) 117 

Jefferson's    character    (II,    225-228) 120 

Jefferson's  friendships    (II,  228,  229) 125 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  UNITED   STATES  OF  AMERICA   IN    1809. 

New  influence  of  Republic  (II,  230) 127 

State  constitutional  systems   (II,  235-237) 127 

Veto  power  and  bill  of  rights  (II,  239-241) 130 

Agriculture  and  manufactures  (II,  242-248) 132 

American  commerce  and  speculation  (II,  248,  249) 133 

Opportunities  of  the  Jefferson  era  (II,  309) 135 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

FIRST   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JAMES    MADISON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Eleventh  Congress.  March  4,  i8o9-March  3, 
1811.— §  II.  Period  of  Twelfth  Congress.  March  4, 
i8n-March  3,  1813. 

Republican  party  trusted    (II,  331-333) 136 

Repeal  of  non-intercourse  with  offer  (II,  336,  337) 137 


viii  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Napoleon  accepts;   Great  Britain  refuses    (II,   339-341) 137 

Twelfth  Congress  and  spirited  leaders  (II,  371) 139 

Clay  for  Speaker;  Calhoun's  speech  (II,  372-379) 139 

Leaders  prevail  with  Madison    (II,  387,  388) 143 

War  against  Great  Britain  (II,  395) 144 

Orders  of  Council  tardily  suspended;  Clay's  speech  (II,  414- 

416)    145 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SECOND   ADMINISTRATION   OF  JAMES    MADISON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8i3-March  3, 
1815.— §  II.  Period  of  Fourteenth  Congress.  March  4, 
i8i5-March  3,  1817. 

The  Hartford  Convention  (II,  473-476) 147 

News  of  peace  with  victory  (II,  476-491) 149 

America's  final  divorce  from  Europe  (II,  492) 149 

Results  of  war ;  lessons  taught  (II,  501,  502) 150 

Monroe  chosen  President   (II,  510-512) 153 

Overtures  to  reconciliation;    Monroe  and  Jackson   (II,  512, 

513)    153 

Madison's  career  reviewed    (II,   513-516) 154 

CHAPTER  X. 

FIRST  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES   MONROE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Fifteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8i7-March  3, 
1819.— §  II.  Period  of  Sixteenth  Congress.  March  4, 
i8i9-March  3,  1821. 

Monroe's    inauguration    (III,    1-3) 157 

New  policy  and  opportunities   (III,   1-6) 159 

Monroe   and   Washington    (III,    7) 162 

Eastern  tour;  era  of  good  feeling  (III,  8-16) 164 

Clay  and  Crawford ;  Clay  in  opposition  (III,  17-20,  34) 166 

Spanish- American  revolution  (III,  25,  26) 169 

Decay  of  parties;  new  symptoms  (III,  43-47) 171 

Internal  improvements  (III,  54,  55) 173 

Jackson's  popularity  (III,  61-64,  84) 174 


CONTENTS  ix 


PAGE 

Jackson  and  Jefferson  (III,  65,  66) 177 

The  Seminole  war  (III,  84) 177 

A  national   sentiment;   Florida,   etc.    (Ill,   107-109) 178 

Financial  distress  of  1819-20  (III,  120,  121) 180 

Foreign  relations ;  Spain  (III,  121,  122) 181 

American  slavery  reviewed  (III,  134-137) 182 

Southern  planting  interests  (III,  145-147) 185 

The  Missouri  controversy    (III,   147-170) 187 

Compromise  of  North  and  South  (III,  171-173) 187 

CHAPTER  XL 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES   MONROE. 

§  I.    Period  of  Seventeenth  Congress.    March  4,  i82i-March 

3,  1823.— §    II.     Period  of  Eighteenth  Congress.    March 

4,  i823-March  3,  1825. 

Character   of   Monroe    (III,   202-206) 190 

Appearance  and  manners  (III,  206-208) 193 

Washington   City   in    1821    (III,   212-214) 195 

Social  life  at  the  capital  (III,  215) 198 

Census  of  1820;  New  York's  advance  (III,  229-231) 199 

Calhoun  a  national  leader   (III,  261-266) 201 

Plans  of  Holy  Alliance  (III,  286,  287) 203 

Monroe's  famous  message   (III,  287-289) 204 

The  Monroe  doctrine    (III,   288-291 ) 205 

Clay  and  Webster  as  leaders  (III,  298,  299) 207 

Webster's  oratory   (III,   299-302) 208 

Lafayette's  visit;  Monroe's  peaceful  retirement  (III,  334,  335)  211 

CHAPTER  XII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 

§  I.  Period  of  Nineteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i825-March 
3,  1827.— §  II.  Period  of  Twentieth  Congress.  March  4, 
1827- March  3,  1829. 

Era  of  good  feeling  ends  (III,  336,  337) 214 

Calhoun  and  John  Randolph  (III,  369,  370) 215 

Adams's  administration  reviewed   (III,  398-407) 216,  218 

The  two  Adamses  compared  (III,  398,  399) 217 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

FIRST  ADMINISTRATION  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-first  Congress.  March  4,  i829-March 
3,  1831.— §  II.  The  United  States  in  1831.— §  III.  Period 
of  Twenty-second  Congress.  March  4,  i83i-March  3, 
1833- 

Jackson  inaugurated;  the  people's  day  (III,  451-453) 228 

Spoils   of  office    (III,   453-460) 230 

Calhoun  and  the  nullifiers    (III,   482) 232 

The  Hayne  and  Webster  debate   (III,  482-486) 234 

Liberty   and   union    (III,   486) 237 

The  Union  in  1831   (III,  507) 238 

American   character    (III,    512-514) 238 

American  manners    (IV,   4,    5) 243 

•.-American  methods  in  business  (IV,  5-8) 245 

Growth  of  the  West  (IV,  27,  28) 247 

Calhoun's   disappointed   ambition    (IV,   36-39)  . . . 250 

High  and  low  tariffs   (IV,  55-58) 251 

A  new  campaign ;  party  names  changing  (IV,  72-77) 253 

Tariff  nullification  in  1833  (IV,  98,  99,  108) 255 

Calhoun  in  the  Senate  (IV,   109-111) 257 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-third  Congress.  March  4,  1833- 
March  3,  1835. — §  II.  Period  of  Twenty-fourth  Congress. 
March  4,  i835-March  3,  1837. 

Jackson's  zenith  of  popularity    (IV,   112-115)... 261 

Errors   of  his   second   term    (IV,    115) 264 

Jackson's  eastern  tour   (IV,   119-121) 265 

Modes  of  travel;  stage,  canal,  etc.   (IV,  124) 267 

Era  of  the  railway  (IV,  125-127) 268 

John  Quincy  Adams  in  the  House  (IV,  185-188) 270 

Whig  party  formed;  Whigs  and  Democrats  (IV,  191-196)..  273 

New  public  disorders    (IV,  201,  202) 278 

^Garrison  and  the  Abolitionists   (IV,  210-213) . ...  > 279 


CONTENTS  xi 


PAGE 

Taney  succeeds  Marshall ;  the  Supreme  Court  (IV,  232,  233) .  282 

Jackson's  administration  reviewed  (IV,  265-272) 283 

Character  of  Jackson  (IV,  268-272) 286 

Jackson  and  Jefferson  contrasted  (IV,  272,  273) 291 

CHAPTER  XV. 

ADMINISTRATION   OF    MARTIN   VAN   BUREN. 

§  I.    Period  of  Twenty-fifth  Congress.    March  4,  i837-March 

3,  1839. — §  II.    Period  of  Twenty-sixth  Congress.    March 

4,  i839-March  3,  1841. 

Disaster  and  the  independent  treasury  (IV,  283,  284) 293 

Alliance  of  Seward,   Weed  and  Greeley    (IV,   331-334) 295 

Van  Buren's  defeat ;  his  character  (IV,  349-352) 297 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON. 

Period  of  Twenty-seventh  Congress.      March  4,  1841- 
April  4,  1841. 

Early  death  of  Harrison  (IV,  364-366) 301 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  TYLER. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-seventh  Congress.  April  4,  1841- 
March  3,  1843. — §  II.  Period  of  Twenty-eighth  Con 
gress.  March  4,  i843-March  3,  1845. 

Succession  of  Vice-President    (IV,  367,  368) 304 

Tyler's   past   record    (IV,    370-372) 304 

fugitive  slaves  and  State  collision  (IV,  427,  428) 307 

Single-term  theory ;  Tyler's  apostasy  (IV,  431,  432) 308 

Tyler's  annexation  scheme   (IV,  440) 310 

Conventions  and  the  electric  telegraph  (IV,  469,  470) 311 

Texas  annexation  in  Congress  (IV,  486,  487) 312 

Tyler  takes  the  responsibility   (IV,  487,  488) 313 

Tyler's  character    (IV,   491-494) 314 


xii  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ADMINISTRATION    OF   JAMES    KNOX    POLK. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-ninth  Congress.  March  4,  1845- 
March  3,  1847.— §  II.  The  Mexican  War.  May,  1846- 
September,  1847.— §  III.  Period  of  Thirtieth  Congress. 
March  4,  i847-March  3,  1849. 

Polk  as  Chief  Executive  (IV,  496-498) 317 

The  Oregon  settlement   (IV,  514) 320 

Polk's  low-tariff  policy  (IV,  514-516) 320 

Texas  annexation  and  the  Mexican  War  (IV,  518,  519) 322 

War;  the  railway,  telegraph  and  post-office  (IV,  549,  550)..  324 

Generals  Scott  and  Taylor   ( V,  3-8) 325 

Conquest  and  the  Wilmot  proviso  (V,  66-70) 331 

Lincoln  and  Davis  in  Congress  (V,  76-79) 334 

Death  of  Adams  at  the  Capitol   (V,  88-90) 337 

Spoliation  of  Mexico  (V,  123,  124) 339 

Polk's  character  and  death   (V,   125-127) 340 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  ZACHARY  TAYLOR. 

Period  of  Thirty-first  Congress.    March  4,  1849- July  9,  1850. 

Our  new  Pacific  acquisition  (V,  129,  130) 343 

California  gold  and  a  new  free  State  (V,  152) 345 

vSlavery's  dismay ;  portents  of  disunion  (V,  154) 346 

"The  Senate  speeches  of  March,  1850  (V,  170-172) 347 

.Seward's  "higher  law";  Calhoun  dies  (V,  171) 349 

Taylor  and   the   Senate  plan    (V,    189) 349 

Taylor's  sudden  death    (V,   189,   190) 349 

CHAPTER  XX. 

ADMINISTRATION    OF    MILLARD    FILLMORE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirty-first  Congress.  July  9,  i8so-March  3, 
1851.— §  II.  Period  of  Thirty-second  Congress.  March 
4,  i8si-March  3,  1853. 

Eulogy  and  the  succession  (V,  191,  192) 352 

Fillmore  accepts  the  Clay  plan  (V,  192) 353 


CONTENTS  xiii 


PAGE 

v  Compromise  measures  of  1850  (V,  204-208) 354 

i.  Anti-slavery  sentiment  coerced  (V,  213,  214) 355 

.  New  attitude  of  parties   (V,  242,  243) 356 

Deaths  of  Clay  and  Webster  (V,  245-248) 357 

Democrats  elect  President ;  downfall  of  Whig  party  (V,  249)  359 
Fillmore's  administration  reviewed  (V,  257,  258) 360 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

ADMINISTRATION    OF    FRANKLIN    PIERCE. 

§  I.    Period  of  Thirty-third  Congress.    March  4,  i853-March 

3,  1855.— §  II.    Period  of  Thirty-fourth  Congress.   March 

4,  iSss-March  3,  1857. 

Douglas  and  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill;  squatter  sovereignty 

(V,  279,  280) 363 

Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  violated  (V,  289-292) 364 

The  North  aroused;  new  political  fusion  (V,  301-303) 367 

Party  movements;  Know  Nothings,  etc.   (V,  304,  305) 369 

Fredom  or  slavery  in  Kansas    (V,  315-321) 370 

New  Republican  party  at  the  North  (V,  351-356) 372 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  BUCHANAN. 

§  I.    Period  of  Thirty-fifth  Congress.    March  4,  i857-March 

3,  1858.— §  II.    Period  of  Thirty-sixth  Congress.    March 

4,  i859-March  3,  1861. 

National  Democracy  perverted   (V,  371,  372) 374 

Rebellion  in  Utah    (V,  403,  404) 375 

Douglas  and  Lincoln  in  Illinois   (V,  411-413) 377 

New  territorial  dogmas   (V,  414) 380 

The  "irrepressible  conflict"  (V,  415) 381 

Southern  territorial  demands  ( V,  428-430) 382 

John  Brown's  invasion  (V,  443,  444) 385 

Democratic  schism;  Republicans  at  Chicago  (V,  457-459). .. .  386 

Lincoln  nominated  and  elected   President    (V,  460) 389 

President  Buchanan  falters   (V,  472-474) 390 


xiv  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Secession  and  a  Southern  Confederacy  (V,  474,  475) 391 

Approach  of  civil  war  (V,  507-51 1 ) 392 

Washington   a  beleaguered   city    (V,   511,   512) 396 

SUPPLEMENTARY  CHAPTER. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.* 

March  4,  1861  —  April  15,  1865. 

Lincoln's  administration  reviewed ;  personal  character   (VI, 

624-633)     398 

Fame  of  Lincoln;  his  reconciling  disposition  (VI,  632,  633)..  407 

*See  foot-note  on  page  408. 


INDEX 409 


EIGHTY  YEARS   OF   UNION 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

§  I.  The  Thirteen  Confederate  States,  1783-87.— §  II.  The  Con 
stitutional  Convention,  May  14-September  17,  1787. — §  III. 
A  More  Perfect  Union,  1787-1789. 

AT  the  close  of  our  Revolution  the  Union  States 
of  America  comprised  the  same  thirteen  re 
publics  whose  representatives,  assembled  at 
Independence  Hall,  had,  in  the  name  of  the  American 
people,  so  boldly  flung  defiance  at  George  III.  seven 
years  earlier,  declaring  the  united  colonies  absolved 
from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown.  "Free  and 
independent  States,"  they  were  then  proclaimed;  right 
fully  free  and  independent  of  the  mother  country,  the 
king  was  after  a  long  and  stubborn  contest  compelled  to 
acknowledge  them.  But  meantime,  they  had,  by  mutual 
assent,  advanced  to  the  condition  of  a  confederacy,  in 
tended  to  be  perpetual,  whose  style,  never  since  relin 
quished,  was  foreshown  in  their  charter  of  inde 
pendence.* 

*  As  to  the  style,  "  United  States  of  America,"  cf.  Articles  of 
Confederation,  Art.  I ;  Constitution  of  United  States,  Preamble ; 
Declaration  of  Independence,  closing  paragraph.  These  were  the 
old  thirteen  Colonies  or  States:  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts 
(or  Massachusetts  Bay),  of  which  at  this  time  Maine  constituted 
a  district,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  and  Georgia. 


:r  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Though  covering  less  than  one-fourth  of  its  present 
territorial  space,  the  domain  of  the  United  States  was 
at  this  period  vast,  and,  as  compared  with  European 
nations,  magnificent;  comprising  an  area,  in  fact,  so 
great  for  experimenting  in  self-government  that  saga 
cious  statesmen  of  the  Old  World  prophesied  with  con 
fidence  a  speedy  failure.  On  the  east  and  west  the 
United  States  had  natural  boundaries,  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  and  the  broad  Mississippi.  The  chain  of  great 
lakes  stood  out  like  a  bastion  on  the  northern  or  British 
frontier,  whose  line,  however,  ran  unevenly,  and  at  the 
northeast  and  northwest  corners  promised  occasion  for 
further  dispute.  The  southern  boundary,  fixed  by  the 
treaty  of  peace  at  parallel  30°,  was  the  most  uncertain 
and  unsatisfactory  of  all ;  for  leaving  out  of  view  what 
the  parties  to  that  treaty  might  themselves  have  in 
tended,  the  title  of  the  neighboring  possessions  vested 
substantially  in  Spain,  a  stealthy  foe  to  the  United 
States,  who  had  artfully  kept  out  of  the  negotiations 
at  Paris,  and  still  guarded,  as  well  as  her  decaying 
strength  would  permit,  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  Gulf  coast. 

Fortunately  for  our  infant  confederacy,  the  present 
sparseness  of  population  on  these  long  frontiers  favored 
a  postponement  of  controversies,  which  the  law  of 
human  increase  must  eventually  have  determined  in  her 
own  favor.  Of  the  extensive  jurisdiction  possessed  by 
virtue  of  her  own  sovereignty,  and  that  of  individual 
States,  much  was  a  wilderness,  given  over  to  the  bear 
and  bison  and  their  red  pursuer ;  woods  and  canebrakes 
marked  the  sites  of  cities  since  illustrious.  Log-forts 
and  trading-posts  were  the  precursors  of  civilization 
on  the  northwestern  frontier;  and  Great  Britain's  delay 
in  surrendering  them  according  to  the  terms  of  the 


BOUNDARIES  AND   POPULATION      3 

treaty,  for  which  one  and  another  pretext  was  assigned, 
proved  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  settlement  of  that 
region.  South  of  the  Ohio  River  a  movement  from 
Virginia  and  the  States  adjacent,  into  what  was  called 
the  Kentucky  country,  had  already  begun.  But  nearly 
the  whole  population  of  the  United  States  was  at  that 
time  confined  to  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Appalachian 
Mountains.  Commercial  traffic  kept  the  inhabitants 
close  to  the  sea  and  its  immediate  tributaries.  New 
York  State,  west  of  the  Schenectady  cornfields,  re 
mained  an  Indian  country,  the  home  of  the  once  war 
like  Five  Nations.  The  American  Union  was  in  effect 
an  Atlantic  confederacy;  every  State  bordered  upon 
that  ocean  or  its  tide-waters,  whose  eastern  waves 
washed  Europe;  and  to  the  Americans  of  1783  who 
turned  westward,  the  blue  Alleghanies  seemed  as  re 
mote  as  did  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  ancients. 

The  total  population  of  the  United  States  in  1783 
may  be  estimated  at  somewhat  less  than  three  and  a 
half  million  souls,  or  only  one-eleventh  of  the  number 
of  inhabitants  shown  by  the  census  of  1870.  This  pop 
ulation  appears  to  have  been  distributed  in  three  nearly 
equal  portions :  New  England  holding  one-third ;  an 
other  belonging  to  the  Middle  States,  namely,  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware ;  while 
the  Southern  States  took  the  residue.  Virginia,  Massa 
chusetts,  and  Pennsylvania  were  the  most  populous 
States  of  the  confederacy;  Georgia  and  Rhode  Island 
the  least. 

Not  all  of  these  three  and  a  half  millions,  scarcely 
more,  probably,  than  four-fifths  of  them,  could  be  reck 
oned  as  free  inhabitants.  Allowing  for  some  fifty  thou 
sand  free  persons  of  color  scattered  through  the  coun 
try,  there  must  have  been  at  this  period  no  less  than 


4  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

six  hundred  thousand  men,  women,  and  children,  held 
in  servitude  to  white  masters,  and  utterly  denied  the 
exercise  of  political  rights.  They  were  of  African 
origin ;  and  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  colonizing  the  New 
World  had  been  borne  by  this  traffic  with  the  dark 
continent,  that  American  slavery,  unlike  that  familiar 
in  the  records  of  ancient  history,  came  to  exist  purely 
as  a  race  institution;  as  the  subjection,  not  of  debtors 
or  vanquished  enemies,  but  of  an  alien,  uncouth-looking 
people,  whom  the  Caucasian  could  hardly  regard  with 
out  mirth  and  contempt,  even  when  moved  to  compas 
sion  for  their  wrongs.  Such  a  slavery  is  the  hardest 
of  all  to  eradicate  from  a  community ;  for  the  oppressed 
must  win  genuine  respect  before  the  oppressor  will 
admit  him  to  full  companionship  and  social  equality, 
and  slow  must  be  that  opportunity. 

The  resistless  logic  of  one  burning  sentence,  seared 
into  the  American  mind  for  nearly  a  century,  has,  more 
than  all  else  that  was  ever  written  or  spoken,  wrought 
the  downfall  of  slave  institutions  in  the  United  States. 
That  sentence,  the  statement  of  truths  "self-evident" 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  found  its  way  into 
one  State  constitution  after  another.  It  has  been  for 
successive  generations  a  bosom  text;  and  incorporated 
moreover  into  the  charters  of  Spanish-American  repub 
lics  as  yet  less  favored,  it  serves  everywhere  as  an  inspi 
ration  to  struggling  humanity. 


Two  young  men  now  appear  upon  the  scene,  whose 
six  years  of  united  labor  did  more  for  establishing  our 
present  constitutional  union  than  the  work  of  any  other 
ten  Americans,  Washington,  perhaps,  excepted,  in 
whom  both  confided,  and  whose  prodigious  personal  in- 


HAMILTON   AND    MADISON  5 


fluence  was  discreetly  used  to  promote  their  ends.  These 
were  Alexander  Hamilton,  of  New  York,  and  James 
Madison,  of  Virginia ;  each  representing  a  powerful 
State  averse  to  Federal  aggrandizement,  which  must 
nevertheless  be  won  over ;  and  both  at  the  threshold  of  a 
great  national  career. 

The  younger,  and  undoubtedly  the  more  brilliant  of 
the  two,  was  Hamilton,  a  man  of  slight  figure  but 
strongly  impressive  presence,  erect  in  bearing,  singu 
larly  self-possessed,  having  the  air  of  a  Caesar.  His 
face  was  a  handsome  one,  such  as  dangerously  capti 
vates  women,  and  beamed  with  intelligence;  he  had  an 
eye  piercing  and  expressive,  a  firm-set  mouth  which  be 
tokened  promptness  and  decision  of  character,  an  open 
and  fearless  countenance.  His  was  one  of  those  rare 
minds  whence  leap  ideas  clad  in  full  armor.  He  would 
not  only  unfold  a  plan  of  his  own  so  as  to  present  the 
strongest  arguments  for  its  adoption,  but  anticipate 
every  objection  and  counterplan  which  others  would  be 
likely  to  urge  against  it.  His  talent  as  an  administra 
tor  was  remarkable ;  neither  principle  nor  detail  escaped 
him;  he  conceived  and  executed  with  equal  facility. 
This  mind  of  marvellous  fertility,  this  self-confidence 
which  inspired  by  its  audacity,  were  the  endowments 
of  a  youth  as  yet  scarcely  turned  of  twenty-five.  But 
this  prodigy,  the  idol  of  aristocratic  circles  in  New 
York,  and  a  recognized  leader  of  the  American  bar, 
was  weighted  in  the  race  for  public  honors,  as  preco 
cious  men  are  apt  to  be,  by  his  own  excess  of  confidence, 
his  impetuosity,  and  the  disposition  to  force  rather  than 
inculcate  the  measures  upon  which  he  had  set  his  heart. 
He  had  not  great  tact,  but  set  his  foot  contemptuously 
to  work  the  treadles  of  slower  minds.  Hence  Hamil 
ton  devised  better  than  he  could  bring  to  pass,  and, 


6  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

wounding  the  pride  of  rivals  whose  co-operation  was 
indispensable  to  success,  he  got  unhorsed  when  he 
should  have  been  spurring  on.  His  political  follow 
ing  was  always  strong,  but  he  suffered  that  of  his  oppo 
nents  to  become  stronger,  which  proved  his  own  bad 
generalship. 

But  more  than  this,  Hamilton  was  not  a  stanch  be 
liever  in  republics  or  the  American  experiment.  He 
was  not  American,  but  a  Briton,  transplanted  and  fed 
upon  Plutarch.  An  alien,  of  obscure  parentage  in  the 
British  West  Indies,  and  one  of  desultory  training,  he 
remained,  except  for  the  influence  of  his  ancient  he 
roes,  British  in  temperament  through  life,  an  adapter 
of  British  institutions  and  methods,  like  a  tailor  who 
fits  different  coats  from  the  same  pattern.  Equality, 
social  or  political,  he  did  not  relish,  though  he  was  a 
friend  of  negro  emancipation.  Popular  government, 
our  latter-day  rule  of  public  opinion,  he  never  could  and 
never  wished  to  comprehend.  He  wished  "good  men," 
as  he  termed  them,  to  rule;  meaning  the  wealthy,  the 
well-born,  the  socially  eminent,  like  those  among  whom 
he  moved  in  his  adopted  city.  No  aristocrat  is  more 
confirmed  than  one  admitted  into  the  charmed  circle, 
whose  own  kindred  are  at  a  convenient  distance;  and 
Hamilton's  claim  to  social  recognition  no  Whig  could 
dispute  after  Washington  had  taken  him  into  his  mili 
tary  family,  and  Schuyler  given  him  a  daughter  in  mar 
riage.  Self-reliance,  self-confidence,  with  its  usual  at 
tendant  faults  and  virtues,  sprang  necessarily  out  of 
such  a  life;  and  the  passion  for  fame  had  burned 
strongly  in  his  boyish  bosom  before  either  a  country 
or  a  cause  could  be  discerned.  Hamilton  had  a  high 
sense  of  honor,  certainly,  an  ambition  which  respected 
the  verdict  of  history.  His  ideal  of  government  was 


HAMILTON    AND    MADISON  7 

not,  however,  a  high  one ;  for  he  believed  that  mankind 
were  to  be  managed  and  cajoled  by  some  magnanimous 
ruler.  Crude  suggestions  like  these  pervaded  his  best 
schemes  of  civil  polity;  giving  an  impression  which 
careless  conversations  might  have  confirmed,  that 
Hamilton  was  at  heart  a  despiser  of  commonplace  hap 
piness,  a  hero-worshipper,  and,  theoretically  at  least,  a 
British  monarchist.  And  indeed  there  was  that  about 
him  which  might  perhaps  have  rendered  him  a  dan 
gerous  man  under  European  surroundings ;  for,  besides 
rating  his  military  above  his  own  civil  qualities,  Ham 
ilton  displayed  self-will,  a  certain  capriciousness  of 
temper,  an  unquenchable  thirst  for  glory  and  distinc 
tion,  and  a  tendency  to  the  false  illusions  of  fatalism 
and  the  romance  of  manifest  destiny.  But  Hamilton's 
ambition  was  noble,  incapable  at  all  events  of  mean 
intrigue  for  the  sake  of  personal  advancement ;  if  ever 
fame's  conqueror,  he  would  have  wished  to  be  a  gener 
ous  one,;  and  the  dream  of  empire  could  only  be  ful 
filled  when  the  crisis  demanded  the  man.  That  crisis 
never  came;  and  for  moving  a  world  whose  leverage 
was  the  average  sense  of  the  people,  one  of  this  temper 
could  hope  for  little  permanent  opportunity. 

A  far  different  man  was  Madison ;  six  years  Hamil 
ton's  senior,  and  yet  a  young  leader  for  so  crowded  an 
hour.  He,  too,  was  of  under-stature,  and  when 
starched  up  to  his  full  dignity  had  not  a  little  prim 
ness  of  aspect.  His  manners  were  reserved  and  shy, 
like  one  given  to  serious  contemplation ;  the  color  of  his 
cheeks  came  and  went;  strangers  were  impressed  by 
him  as  by  some  plain  gentleman  farmer.  But  enter 
ing  Congress  young,  Madison  was  not  long  in  con 
vincing  his  colleagues  of  his  real  sterling  qualities, 
prominent  among  which  were  industry,  method,  pa- 


8  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tience,  soundness  of  judgment,  calmness  of  temper, 
and  unimpeachable  integrity.  His  leadership  was  all 
the  more  readily  conceded  by  elders,  none  of  whom 
were  superiors,  inasmuch  as  he  was  perceived  to  be 
a  youth  of  singular  modesty  and  discretion.  Unlike 
Hamilton,  Madison  was  a  man  of  peace,  whose  sole 
ambition  was  directed  to  the  pursuit  of  civil  adminis 
tration  under  American  methods  and  by  convincing 
other  minds.  American-born,  the  scion  of  an  influen 
tial  family  in  the  Old  Dominion,  educated  at  Princeton 
College, — the  nursery  in  that  era  of  American  states 
men, — a  man  of  independent  means,  he  was  a  product 
thoroughly  indigenous;  and  having  joined  the  new 
school  of  aristo-democrats  in  his  native  State  to  be 
come  a  disciple  and  favorite  of  Jefferson,  it  is  not 
strange  that  he  devoted  his  talents  to  public  life,  nor 
that  so  doing,  he  was  on  the  highroad  to  success. 
There  was  none  of  that  personal  magnetism  in  Madi 
son  such  as  warmed  men's  hearts  to  Hamilton  or  Jef 
ferson,  but  neither  did  he  repel,  and  the  respect  of  his 
opponents  he  rarely  lost.  He  had  remarkable  aptitude 
for  avoiding  personal  quarrels.  As  a  debater,  Madi 
son  moved  others  by  his  lucid,  dispassionate,  judicial 
style  of  reasoning,  not  by  a  fiery  appeal.  His  es 
pousal  of  reform  was  directed  to  plucking  the  fruit  as 
it  ripened;  he  seemed,  indeed,  an  umpire  at  this  era, 
rather  than  a  party-man,  feeling,  to  use  his  favorite 
expression,  for  some  middle  ground.  Mediocrity  which 
forbears  will  win  more  in  politics  than  a  genius  which 
irritates;  but  Madison,  though  a  statesman  of  inferior 
fibre  to  Hamilton,  was  far  above  the  average.  The 
danger  was,  that  a  youth  of  such  sobriety  might  efflor 
esce  into  a  tasteless  and  timid  manhood. 

The  complement  of  two  such  minds  was  most  aus- 


HAMILTON   AND    MADISON  9 

picious  for  the  country.  The  cause  in  which  they  now 
heartily  conjoined,  as  never  in  later  years,,  was  that 
of  procuring  a  federal  government  whose  powers 
should  be  commensurate  with  the  needs  of  the  country. 
Their  prominence  at  this  date  was  favored  by  the  sin 
gular  dearth  of  famous  popular  leaders  for  the  preg 
nant  occasion.  James  Otis  was  dead.  Patrick  Henry's 
influence  helped  to  swell  State  pride,  and  so  did  that  of 
George  Clinton.  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams  ap 
peared  lukewarm  Unionists,  better  able  to  pull  down 
than  build  up,  and  both  were  for  the  time  in  retire 
ment.  Jefferson  and  John  Adams  had  diplomatic  posts 
abroad.  The  aged  Franklin,  just  returning  from  his 
famous  mission  at  France  to  find  himself  elected  chief 
executive  of  Pennsylvania  under  an  ill-jointed  consti 
tution,  had  enough  care  in  holding  that  distracted  com 
monwealth  together.  Of  all  the  patriots  who  had  been 
foremost  in  the  cause  of  independence,  only  John  Jay 
and  Robert  Morris  remained  in  the  home  service,  and 
they  in  such  routine  employment  as  forbade  the  at 
tempt  of  either  to  direct  a  popular  movement.  Wash 
ington  himself,  not  unconscious  of  his  surpassing  influ 
ence,  was  too  delicate  and  just  a  man  to  conduct  a 
popular  revolution  whose  most  likely  issue  would  be 
to  place  him  at  the  head  of  affairs ;  and,  keeping  in  re 
serve,  he  left  others  to  guide,  particularly  his  two  young 
friends,  one  of  whom  he  was  connected  with  by  neigh 
borly  ties,  and  the  other  he  loved  like  an  own  son.  In 
private  correspondence  he  avowed  himself  in  favor  of 
liberal  amendments ;  or,  as  a  last  resort,  the  convention. 


We  are  now  led  to  inquire  briefly  into  the  origin  of 
political  parties  in  the  United  States. 


io  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

The  two  great  subjects  which  most  enlist,  and  at 
the  same  time  distract,  the  passions  and  opinions  of 
mankind,  are  religion  and  politics;  and  the  more  uni 
versal  in  church  or  state  the  concession  of  a  right  to 
think  and  act  independently,  the  stronger  becomes  the 
tendency  of  the  mass  to  separate  into  parties.  Progress 
is  the  law  of  our  being ;  but  the  true  direction  of  human 
progress  is  stated  differently;  and,  whether  to  accom 
plish  or  check  innovation,  men  combine  under  choice 
leaders  and  concert  plans  for  influencing  their  fellow- 
men.  In  some  wiser  age,  when  truth  triumphs,  and 
passion  puts  out  her  torch,  a  general  assimilation,  or 
at  least  toleration  of  views  is  possible,  but  such  an  age 
history  has  never  found.  Nor  is  it  certain  that  indi 
vidualism  and  indifference  are  the  elements  of  a  per- 
pect  state  of  society,  more  than  blind  submission  to  an 
authority  which  refuses  to  be  questioned. 

Among  ancient  nations,  the  Athenian  and  Roman 
republics  more  especially,  flourished  political  parties, 
whose  best  achievement  was  to  advance  the  condition 
of  the  common  people  and  give  them  a  share  in  honors 
at  first  absorbed  by  a  privileged  class.  Modern  parties 
have  a  similar  tendency.  But  while  human  nature  is 
always  the  same,  the  conditions  of  the  old  and  new 
civilization  greatly  differ.  Political  parties  take  their 
best  scope  where  the  general  love  of  liberty  is  pure; 
where  thought  and  action  are  free;  and  where  political 
results  may  be  worked  out  in  a  common  subservience 
to  law  and  order.  After  all,  a  party  is  but  a  political 
agency,  an  instrument  of  the  people;  and  the  agent  or 
servant  should  not  be  above  his  master. 

The  first  political  fact  of  American  history  to  con 
front  us  is  that  in  each  colony  during  the  early  period 
a  controversy,  waged  between  proprietaries  and  the 


EARLY   POLITICAL  PARTIES         n 

body  of  settlers,  ended  in  the  transfer  of  fundamental 
authority  from  the  former  class  to  legislatures  repre 
senting  the  latter.  Those  privileged  to  rule  under  the 
royal  seal  and  mandate  yielded,  however  reluctantly, 
to  the  demands  of  a  popular  rights  party. 

Political  parties  must,  therefore,  have  contended  on 
American  soil  in  the  earliest  era  of  colonization;  rad 
ically  distinguished,  perhaps,  though  not  wholly  unsel 
fish,  by  the  distrust  of  the  one  and  the  confidence  of 
the  other  in  man's  capacity  for  self-government.  One 
party  set  much  by  privilege,  royalty,  and  the  power  to 
compel;  the  other  was  jealous  of  external  authority, 
and  its  champions  were  in  heart  more  nearly  rebels 
against  Great  Britain  than  they  cared  to  own.  Re 
ligion  tinctured  these  early  onsets,  which  fortunately 
drew  little  blood ;  but  the  friends  of  popular  rights  and 
religious  freedom  were  by  no  means  coincident. 

After  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  Amer 
ica  was  ruled  with  a  stronger  hand;  the  home 
policy  being  now  to  recall  settlers  to  their  alle 
giance,  repress  tendencies  to  popular  rule  in  disregard 
of  the  royal  charters,  and  keep  the  Colonies  disunited. 
Less  responsible  for  the  course  of  their  own  affairs, 
the  colonists  now  grew  more  observant  of  events 
abroad,  of  parliamentary  statutes  and  orders  in  coun 
cil.  To  the  new  generation  American  politics  had  be 
come  the  mere  reflex  of  what  was  passing  in  the  world 
of  London.  Hence  came  the  British  party  names, 
"Whig"  and  "Tory,"  into  vogue  among  Americans, 
with,  perhaps,  this  prime  distinction,  that  the  colonial 
Tory  was  a  British  subject  to  the  core,  through  all 
colonial  oppression,  while  the  colonial  Whig  believed, 
with  Locke,  in  deriving  government  from  the  common 
consent  of  the  governed:  that  theory  so  cherished  by 


12  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

our  earlier  colonists,  and  asserted,  somewhat  illogi- 
cally,  by  Parliament  itself  for  justifying  the  final 
expulsion  of  the  Stuarts.  Loyalty  animated  the  one 
set,  while  the  other  ripened  insensibly  for  independence. 

When  the  war  ended,  the  Whig  name  had  been  swal 
lowed  up  in  that  broader  one  of  patriot  and  American. 
As  for  Tories,  the  few  who  had  not  fled  remained  in  po 
litical  obscurity,  irresponsible  as  to  passing  events, 
State  pride  now  increased  as  the  Union  lanquished. 
The  road  to  popularity  in  each  State  was  to  inspire  an 
unfounded  jealousy  of  the  powers  of  Congress.  But 
political  issues  from  1783  to  1787  were  chiefly  local 
and  uninteresting. 

On  the  whole  the  tendency  of  parties  from  1783  to 
1787  was  to  denationalize  and  crumble  into  fragments. 
An  organization  of  national  parties,  on  voting  issues, 
was  indeed  unknown  in  America  prior  to  the  Philadel 
phia  Convention. 


But  no  sooner  was  the  plan  of  a  new  Federal  con 
stitution  published  than  the  political  mustering  began. 
Local  issues  were  postponed  or  absorbed  into  the 
broader  national  one,  and  in  a  brief  space  the  whole 
country  was  studded  with  the  camps  of  two  great 
political  parties.  The  initiative  in  this  short  and  sharp 
campaign  belonged,  of  course,  to  the  friends  of  the  pro 
posed  constitution.  With  that  diversion  of  epithets 
for  political  effect  which  is  so  common  where  partisans 
have  the  chance  to  name  opponents  as  well  as  them 
selves,  the  constitutionalists  called  themselves  Feder 
alists,  and  their  adversaries  Anti-Federalists.  The 
party  name  of  Federalist  has  since  become  historical ; 
and  yet,  to  speak  logically,  it  was  the  Anti-Federal 


FEDERALISTS— ANTI-FEDERALISTS   13 

party  that  sustained  a  federal  plan,  while  the  Federalist 
contended  for  one  more  nearly  national. 

Between  these  two  parties  the  people  balanced  in 
opinion.  The  press  and  platform  offered  a  common 
medium  for  persuasion,  and  for  the  next  ten  months 
America  became  a  debating-school. 

The  Massachusetts  Convention  turned  the  scales; 
ratification  was  carried,  but  with  the  proposal  of  essen 
tial  amendments  to  be  later  adopted.  That  action  decided 
the  country,  though  too  slowly  for  the  Anti-Federalists 
to  perceive  their  danger  or  how  they  had  been  out 
flanked.  It  was  not  alone  the  example  of  this  essential 
State,  but  her  methods  of  amendment,  that  solved  the 
whole  difficulty  with  the  people  at  the  right  moment. 
This  flank  movement  literally  saved  the  Federalist 
cause  from  disaster;  for  the  constitution  as  it  came 
from  Philadelphia  could  not  have  been  carried,  as  events 
proved.  Had  the  Anti-Federalists  of  other  States 
wisely  accepted  this  as  a  compromise,  their  party  might 
have  claimed  half  the  triumph  of  a  bill  of  rights.  But, 
with  their  strongest  position  turned,  they  now  took  their 
narrow  stand  upon  utter  rejection,  reckless  of  what 
this  might  lead  to.  The  Federalists,  with  more  intelli 
gence,  made  the  new  resource  their  own.  Immediate 
acceptance  with  a  generous  trust  that  amendments 
would  follow,  became  rather  their  ground  of  appeal; 
and  confiding  rightly  in  the  good  sense  of  the  people, 
they  insured  to  themselves  not  only  victory  but  the  best 
fruits  of  it. 


CHAPTER   II. 

FIRST   ADMINISTRATION    OF    GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 

§  I.    Period  of  First  Congress.      March  4,  I78g-March  3,  1791. — 
§  II.  Period  of  Second  Congress.   March  4,  I79i-March  3,  1793. 

IN  New  York  City,  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  one 
pleasant  Thursday  in  April,  a  large  concourse  of 
people,  assembled  at  the  Battery  and  neighboring 
wharves,  were  gazing  with  strained  eyes  down  the  bay. 
Holiday  tokens  appeared  on  every  hand.  The  vessels 
178  in  the  harbor,  prominent  among  which  were 
April  a3.  the  ship  North  Carolina  and  a  Spanish 
packet,  the  Galveston,  lay  at  anchor,  their  colors  danc 
ing  in  the  breeze.  The  American  flag  was  displayed 
from  the  fort,  from  old  Federal  Hall  (where  now 
stands  the  United  States  custom-house),  and  from 
various  State  and  municipal  buildings.  Stores  and 
dwelling-houses  along  the  line  of  Wall  and  Queen 
streets  flaunted  streamers,  mottoes,  and  various  patri 
otic  emblems.  The  crowd  was  greatest  near  the  foot  of 
Wall  Street ;  here  humanity  surged,  and  scarcely  a  win 
dow  was  nngraced  by  feminine  faces,  sharing  the  gen 
eral  expression  of  happy  expectation.  The  stairs  at 
the  landing-place  of  Murray's  wharf  had  been  carpeted, 
and  the  rails  were  hung  with  crimson.  Between  this 
wharf  and  Wall  Street  was  a  coffee-house,  at  which 
waited  Governor  Clinton  and  his  military  staff,  with 
various  other  dignitaries.  Militia  companies,  dra 
goons,  and  grenadiers,  in  bright  uniform,  with  their 


WASHINGTON  ENTERS  NEW  YORK    15 

hands  of  music,  rested  in  easy  negligence  along  the  side 
walks,  chatting  with  the  multitude  and  waiting  the 
order  of  attention.  Shining  carriages  were  drawn  up 
next  the  wharf.  Mounted  aids  clattered  back  and  forth, 
bearing  messages. 

Presently  a  puff  of  smoke  came  from  the  Galveston, 
followed  by  a  loud  report.  At  the  same  instant,  with 
her  yards  all  manned,  she  ran  up  and  displayed  the 
colors  of  all  nations.  Thirteen  guns  mouthed  a  re 
sponse  from  the  Battery.  And  now  could  be  seen 
rounding  the  Spanish  packet  seven  barges,  manned  by 
crews  dressed  in  white,  the  handsomest  of  them  pulled 
by  twelve  master  pilots,  a  thirteenth  serving  as  cox 
swain.  Upon  this  barge,  expressly  built  for  the  occa 
sion,  all  eyes  turned,  seeking  to  distinguish  the  stateliest 
figure  among  a  distinguished  group  in  the  stern-sheets. 
A  prolonged  shout  went  up  as  the  water  party  made 
their  way  to  Murray's  wharf.  Oars  were  tossed  and 
let  fall,  the  chief  barge  was  made  fast  at  the  slip,  and 
up  the  carpeted  staircase,  with  his  escort,  mounted 
a  tall,  elderly  man,  of  military  bearing,  dressed  in  a 
plain  suit,  with  blue  coat  and  buff  waistcoat  and 
breeches,  and  looking  healthy,  but  travel-worn.  Amid 
the  plaudits  of  the  dense  throng,  now  fully  excited, 
Governor  Clinton,  with  his  suite  and  the  civic  officers, 
welcomed  him  at  the  landing-place.  The  artillery  fired 
another  salute.  The  bells  broke  out  madly.  Washing 
ton  (for  it  was  he  who  arrived  after  this  fashion)  en 
tered  a  state  carriage,  followed  by  the  governor. 
Chancellor  Livingston,  the  adjutant-general  and  city 
recorder,  Jay,  Knox,  Osgood,  and  the  Congressional 
committee,  who  had  now  disembarked,  with  the  rest 
of  the  party  which  had  been  rowed  over  from  Eliza- 
bethtown  Point,  took  seats  in  other  carriages  provided 


1 6  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

them ;  as  did  likewise  the  French  and  Spanish  ambas 
sadors.  A  body-guard  of  grenadiers  attended  the  Pres 
ident-elect.  The  military  now  shouldered  arms  and 
took  up  the  line  of  march.  Citizens,  arm-in-arm, 
brought  up  the  rear.  In  this  manner  the  procession 
wended  its  way  up  Wall  and  through  Queen  streets, 
to  the  house  which  the  honored  guest  was  to 
occupy. 

Thus  propitiously  did  George  Washington  enter  New 
York,  our  temporary  capital,  as  the  first  President-elect 
of  the  United  States.  Receiving  after  the  electoral 
count  his  official  notification  by  the  hand  of  the  vener 
able  and  trusty  Charles  Thomson,  long  secretary  of 
the  Continental  Congress,  he  had  started  from  Mount 
Vernon  a  week  before  to  enter  upon  his  new  official 
trust.  All  the  way  hither  he  had  been  publicly  hon 
ored,  though  setting  out  as  a  plain  citizen,  in  his  pri 
vate  carriage.  Through  Philadelphia,  under  an  escort 
of  city  troops,  he  rode  upon  a  prancing  white  horse,  a 
civic  crown  of  laurel  upon  his  head.  A  surprise,  ar 
ranged  for  him  at  Trenton  by  its  fair  townspeople, 
touched  him  the  most  deeply  of  all  tributes.  Here,  at 
the  bridge  spanning  the  Assunpink  River,  which, 
twelve  years  before,  he  had  crossed  and  recrossed  in 
those  midnight  marches  which  turned  America's  for 
tunes  and  his  own,  he  found  an  arch,  supported  on 
thirteen  pillars  and  twined  with  flowers,  laurel,  and 
evergreen.  It  bore  the  inscription,  "The  Defender  of 
the  Mothers  will  be  the  Protector  of  the  Daughters." 
As  he  passed  beneath  it  young  girls,  dressed  in  white, 
sang  an  ode  of  welcome  and  strewed  flowers  before 
him. 

Washington  now  remained  a  week  in  New  York  be 
fore  the  arrangements  for  his  inauguration  were  con- 


WASHINGTON'S   INAUGURATION      17 

eluded,  meantime  receiving  the  hospitalities  of  the  city 
and  its  chief  inhabitants. 

The  last  day  of  the  month  was  fixed  by  April  30. 
Congress  for  the  public  ceremonies  of  the 
first  Presidential  induction.  Though  the  day  opened 
with  clouds,  the  sun  broke  out  resplendent  before  noon. 
Early  in  the  morning  crowds  of  people  might  be  seen 
pouring  into  town  over  King's  bridge,  some  on  foot, 
others  in  carriages;  and  many,  besides,  had  already 
arrived  from  the  neighboring  States  to  witness  the  cere 
monies.  During  the  forenoon  prayers  were  offered  up 
in  all  the  churches.  At  twelve  o'clock  Washington 
proceeded,  with  a  military  escort,  from  his  house  to 
Federal  Hall,  whose  situation  was  at  the  corner  of  Wall 
and  Broad  streets.  Both  houses  of  Congress  were 
already  assembled  in  the  Senate  chamber.  Vice-Presi- 
dent  Adams,  who  had  entered  upon  his  official  duties 
shortly  before  Washington's  arrival  in  the  city,  now 
received  the  President-elect  and  conducted  him  to  a 
chair  at  the  upper  end  of  the  hall.  After  a  few  mo 
ments  of  silence,  when  all  was  ready,  the  assembled 
body  and  their  invited  guests  went  out  upon  the  Senate 
balcony,  the  appointed  place  for  the  inaugural  cere 
mony.  This  balcony,  which  fronted  on  Broad  Street, 
was  most  appropriate,  facing,  as  it  did,  a  large,  open 
space,  and  being  long  and  ample,  with  Tuscan  pillars 
at  intervals,  and  cornices  decked  to  symbolize  the  thir 
teen  States. 

The  scene  was  impressive.  Below  appeared  a  sway 
ing  crowd,  whose  upturned,  eager  faces  were  packed 
in  solid  mass.  Not  a  window  or  roof  in  the  neighbor 
hood  was  unoccupied.  A  loud  shout  went  up  as  Wash 
ington  came  to  the  front  of  the  balcony;  cocked  hats 
waved  in  the  air,  handkerchiefs  fluttered.  Placing  his 


1 8  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

hand  on  his  heart,  Washington  bowed  again  and  again, 
and  then  took  his  seat  in  an  arm-chair,  between  two  of 
the  pillars,  near  a  small  table.  His  suit  was  a  dark 
brown,  of  American  manufacture;  at  his  side  he  wore 
a  dress  sword;  white  silk  stockings  and  shoes  whose 
decoration  consisted  of  plain  silver  buckles  completed 
his  attire.  His  hair,  after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  was 
powdered  and  gathered  in  a  bag  behind,  and  his  head 
remained  uncovered.  Though  erect  still  in  figure,  with 
a  face  which  flushed  when  he  spoke,  and  of  that  inde 
scribable  bearing,  kingly  yet  unkingly,  which  inspired 
the  deepest  veneration  while  repelling  all  familiarity, 
Washington  showed  some  signs  of  approaching  age. 
A  new  set  of  false  teeth,  rudely  made,  gave  the  lower 
part  of  his  face  an  unusual  aspect.  To  those  who  had 
long  known  him  he  seemed  softening  from  the  warrior 
into  the  sage.  On  one  side  of  him  stood  Chancellor 
Livingston,  his  stately  figure  arrayed  in  full  black;  on 
the  other  side  the  square-set  Adams,  dressed  more 
showily  than  Washington,  but  likewise  in  clothes  of 
American  fabric.  Distinguished  men  in  and  out  of 
Congress — among  the  latter  Hamilton,  Knox,  and 
Steuben — surrounded  this  conspicuous  group.  The 
chancellor  came  forward  and  gestured  to  the  crowd. 
All  was  silent.  Washington  arose  once  more,  and  while 
Otis,  the  newly  chosen  secretary  of  the  Senate,  held  an 
open  Bible  upon  a  rich  crimson  cushion,  Chancellor 
Livingston  administered  the  oath  of  office.  The  words 
were  solemnly  repeated  by  Washington,  who  said, 
audibly,  "I  swear,"  and  then,  with  closed  eyes  and  in  a 
whispering  voice,  "so  help  me,  God !"  kissing  the  book 
as  he  concluded.  Chancellor  Livingston  now  turned 
again  to  the  crowd,  and,  waving  his  hand,  exclaimed 
loudly,  "Long  live  George  Washington,  President  of 


WASHINGTON'S    INAUGURATION     19 

the  United  States!"  Upon  this  signal  a  long,  loud 
huzza  rent  the  air,  and  cheer  followed  cheer.  It 
seemed  the  welling  up  from  thousands  of  hearts  whose 
emotions  could  no  longer  be  restrained.  A  flag  was 
run  up  on  a  staff  over  the  building,  and  the  artillery 
guns  at  the  Battery  thundered  the  earliest  of  Presi 
dential  salutes. 

Once  more  returning  to  the  Senate-chamber,  the 
balcony  audience  took  their  seats  and  listened  to  the 
inaugural  address,  which  Washington  read  to  the  as 
sembled  Congress  from  his  manuscript.  "It  was  a  very 
touching  scene,"  writes  a  member  of  the  House,  "and 
quite  of  the  solemn  kind.  His  aspect,  grave  almost  to 
sadness ;  his  modesty,  actually  shaking ;  his  voice  deep, 
a  little  tremulous,  and  so  low  as  to  call  for  close  atten 
tion;  added  to  the  series  of  objects  presented  to  the 
mind  and  overwhelming  it,  produced  emotions  of  the 
most  affecting  kind  upon  the  members/' 

This  address  opened  by  an  allusion  (sincere,  doubt 
less,  as  Washington's  private  letters  show)  to  the 
anxiety  and  diffidence  he  had  felt  and  the  conflict  of 
his  own  emotions  between  a  desire  of  retirement  in  his 
declining  years  on  the  one  hand  and  his  disposition,  on 
the  other,  to  heed  the  summons  of  Congress  and  the 
country.  All  he  dared  aver  was  his  faithful  study  to 
collect  his  duty  from  a  just  appreciation  of  all  the  cir 
cumstances  which  might  affect  it ;  and  all  he  dared  hope 
was  that,  if  grateful  remembrance  of  the  past  or  an 
affectionate  sensibility  of  this  transcendent  proof  of  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens  had  led  him  into  error 
in  accepting  the  trust,  his  country  would  not  judge  him 
unkindly.  With  this  modest  preface  he  expressed  his 
wish  to  receive,  as  he  had  done  while  at  the  head  of  the 


20  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

army,  a  compensation  which  should  merely  defray  his 
official  expenses. 

The  leading  theme  of  his  discourse  being  personal, 
Washington  touched  but  lightly  upon  measures  of  prac 
tical  administration,  deferring  in  this  respect  to  the 
wisdom  of  Congress.  But  he  threw  out  suggestions 
highly  favorable  to  amending  the  constitution  in  re 
sponse  to  the  general  wish,  and  otherwise  pursuing 
such  a  course  of  popular  conciliation  as  might  knit  the 
people  of  all  the  States  into  a  harmonious  union.  For 
the  prosperity  of  the  new  government  he  invoked  once 
and  again  the  favor  of  the  Almighty  Being  whose  wis 
dom  had  thus  far  directed  us. 

After  the  conclusion  of  this  address  the  grave 
assemblage  proceeded  on  foot  to  St.  Paul's  chapel,  on 
Broadway,  where  Bishop  Provoost,  who  had  been 
elected  one  of  the  chaplains  of  Congress,  offered 
prayers;  after  which  Washington's  escort  reconducted 
him  to  his  house.  This  ended  the  ceremonials  of  our 
first  inauguration :  an  inauguration  to  be  distinguished 
from  all  later  ones  in  respect  of  place,  the  date  in  the 
calendar  year,  the  decidedly  religious  tone  given  to  the 
exercises,  and  a  minor  feature  or  two  which  reminded 
some  of  a  foreign  coronation.  Considering  the  man 
and  the  occasion,  nothing  seemed  out  of  tune  with  the 
popular  expression.  There  were  fireworks  and  illu 
minations  in  the  evening. 

More  than  once  at  the  first  session  of  our  first  Con 
gress  a  clash  of  sentiment  was  perceptible  between  the 
two  Houses  as  to  the  limits  of  their  respective  func 
tions.  But  for  the  secrecy  of  the  Senate  debates  this 
would  have  been  plainly  revealed  to  the  country.  Sen 
ators,  as  representing  States  in  their  integrity  and 


THE   FIRST   CONGRESS  21 

selected  for  long  terms,  at  once  arrogated  superiority. 
This  was  indicated  the  very  day  a  quorum  assembled 
by  the  manner  it  invited  the  House  to  attend  the  elec 
toral  count,  and  more  positive  symptoms  of  an  impe 
rious  disposition  presently  appeared.  It  was  the 
House,  the  popular  and  more  numerous  branch,  less 
resembling  the  old  single  Congress  than  the  Senate, 
that  felt  the  first  disadvantage  of  such  an  encounter; 
but  its  dignity  was  quickly  asserted,  and  the  popular 
impulse  from  without  soon  carried  it  buoyantly  along 
side,  in  the  assertion  of  a  co-equal  importance. 

The  Senate,  for  example,  proposed  sending  bills  to 
the  House  by  a  secretary,  while  House  bills  should  be 
brought  up  by  two  Representatives.  But  this  mark  of 
deference  the  House  declined  to  bestow,  and  in  the  end 
each  body  was  left  to  send  messages  by  persons  of  its 
own  choice.  Again,  in  fixing  the  compensation  of  Con 
gress,  the  Senators  claimed  higher  pay  for  themselves 
than  for  the  Representatives,  because,  to  be  frank,  they 
esteemed  their  dignity  the  greater.  To  this  point  they 
adhered  with  such  pertinacity  that,  sooner  than  suffer 
the  compensation  bill  to  fail  altogether,  the  House  per 
mitted  the  insertion  of  a  clause  which  promised  Sena 
tors  a  per  diem  of  $7  after  the  4th  of  March,  1795. 
The  concession,  however,  had  more  shadow  than  sub 
stance,  for  before  that  date  the  House  was  too  strongly 
intrenched  to  permit  that  a  co-ordinate  branch  in  most 
particulars  should  vaunt  itself  as  an  upper  House. 

The  Senate,  too,  inclined  more  to  ceremonials  than 
the  House.  Upon  Washington's  arrival  at  New  York, 
Congress  was  found  disputing  as  to  how  he  should  be 
addressed ;  which  was  one  cause  for  delaying  the  inau 
guration.  Postponing  the  discussion,  however,  as  was 
then  needful,  the  two  Houses  resumed  it  as  soon  as 


22  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

the  exercises  were  over ;  the  special  question  being  how 
to  frame  proper  replies  to  the  inaugural  address.  The 
Senate  proposed  the  title  of  "His  Highness,  the  Pres 
ident  of  the  United  States  of  America  and  Protector  of 
their  Liberties/'  but  the  House  would  have  only  that 
simple  one  of  the  constitution,  "President  of  the  United 
States  of  America."  The  Senate  was  stubborn,  and 
conference  produced  no  agreement.  So  the  House, 
having  framed  a  reply  after  its  own  taste,  presented  it 
to  the  President;  after  which  checkmate  the  Senate 
had  next  to  follow  with  an  address  similarly  couched 
or  else  appear  ridiculous. 


While  the  bills  which  created  the  new  offices  were 
pending  before  Congress,  Washington  matured  the 
rules  which  should  guide  him  in  selecting  persons  to 
fill  them.  It  was  clear  that,  whatever  their  first  mis 
giving,  most  men  of  wide  merit  who  had  inclined  to 
the  anti-constitutional  side  were  now  ready  to  lend  his 
administration  their  hearty  support;  besides  those  who 
had  lately  borne  the  burden  of  establishing  the  new  gov 
ernment.  With  such  abundant  material  to  choose  from, 
he  determined  to  draw  round  him  the  great  characters 
of  the  country  with  little  regard  to  the  contrasting 
shades  of  political  opinion.  He  was  not  averse  to 
widening  the  field  of  selection,  if  his  administration 
would  thereby  gain  in  the  affections  of  the  people  and 
the  respect  of  mankind.  Of  party  services  as  such, 
and  rewards  for  party  work,  he  determined  to  know 
nothing.  Personal  devotion  to  himself  called  for  per 
sonal,  not  public,  remuneration;  and  indeed  the  com 
pass  of  his  personal  following  at  this  moment  was 
scarcely  less  than  unanimous  America.  None  crowded 


APPOINTMENTS  TO  OFFICE          23 

round  to  offer  advice  or  to  solicit  office;  for  in  making 
appointments,  as  also  in  regulating  his  executive 
course,  Washington  consulted  as  he  saw  fit,  and  con 
sulted  wisely;  usually,  indeed,  in  the  form  of  a  letter 
so  as  to  elicit  written  and  thoughtful  replies.  Who 
ever  might  be  intimate  in  the  President's  household, 
Washington's  tender  of  office  came  from  the  man  him 
self.  Three  qualifications  he  believed  essential  for  the 
highest  civil  offices :  integrity,  capacity,  and  conspicu- 
ousness,  the  last  scarcely  less  than  the  other  two.  Un 
known  characters  he  did  not  wish  for  exalted  stations. 
"I  want  men,"  he  would  say,  "already  of  marked  emi 
nence  before  the  country;  not  only  as  the  more  likely 
to  be  serviceable,  but  because  the  public  will  more  read 
ily  trust  them."  Sectional  claims  too  he  did  not  disre 
gard  ;  for,  to  his  thinking,  executive  administration,  as 
in  the  legislative  and  judiciary  departments,  required 
to  be  largely  representative  in  character,  in  order  to 
pervade  well  the  whole  Union.  With  these  cardinal 
precepts  for  his  guidance  and  method,  it  followed  that 
the  office  pursued  the  man  more  closely  during  the  ad 
ministration  of  our  first  President  than  as  yet  under 
any  of  his  successors;  far  more,  in  fact,  than  would 
be  possible  in  an  age  where  party  councils  predominate 
or  the  people's  candidate  has  to  be  worked  out  by 
processes  less  simple  than  the  spontaneous  will  of  the 
people  themselves.  Nor,  perhaps,  has  it  happened  on 
the  other  hand  that,  in  so  great  a  proportion  of  the 
higher  national  appointments,  men  of  distinction  and 
diverse  views  have  had  the  opportunity  of  declining 
an  office  delicately  and  unexpectedly  tendered. 

With  respect  to  his  official  advisers,  Washington 
inclined  at  first  to  pursue  the  strict  letter  of  the  con 
stitution,  which,  conceding  it  proper  to  take  official 


24  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

opinions,  fetters  the  Chief  Magistrate  by  no  board  of 
executive  counsellors.  His  habit  of  mind  led  him  to 
take  advice  and  weigh  it,  deciding  upon  his  own  course 
of  action ;  and  he  would  consult  at  discretion  the  Vice- 
President,  Chief  Justice  Jay,  or  a  legislative  leader  like 
Madison,  and  not  the  executive  heads  alone.  Routine 
matters  were  referred  with  military  precision  to  the 
Secretary  concerned.  For  under  the  American  system 
as  distinguished  from  the  British  there  is  no  gently 
coercive  council  known  as  a  ministry,  and  each  depart 
ment  is  independent  of  the  other,  while  none  of  them 
need  bend  to  the  dictation  of  Congress.  But  presently 
consulting  his  heads  of  departments  and  Attorney- 
General  as  more  immediate  advisers,  he  worked  into 
the  convenient  practice,  after  the  war  between  France 
and  England  commenced,  of  assembling  them  and 
making  oral  consultation;  whence  the  origin  of  what 
we  later  term  a  cabinet  and  cabinet  meetings.  Har 
mony  of  action  and  expedition  upon  affairs  of  great 
public  moment  were  reasons  doubtless  for  this  latter 
step;  but  with  the  first  council  of  four,  selected  from 
such  diverse  material,  dissension  and  rupture  resulted. 
As  Jefferson  used  to  say,  he  and  Hamilton  were  pitted 
against  each  other  like  two  cocks;  and  Randolph  sid 
ing  more  naturally  with  the  one  and  Knox  with  the 
other,  the  President  had  often  to  choose  a  course  of 
action  which  half  his  advisers  openly  disappproved. 

No  precisian  or  martinet,  Washington  was  punctili 
ous  in  the  smallest  matters  of  etiquette.  He  had  prece 
dents  to  establish  as  the  earliest  chief  executive,  and 
long  intercourse  with  mankind  in  exalted  station  had 
taught  him  the  importance  of  rendering  to  each  his  due 
in  official  intercourse,  though  it  were  only  by  a  bow, 
a  smile,  or  a  well-chosen  word  or  two;  and  this  with 


OUR  FIRST  PRESIDENT  25 

him  was  not  diplomacy,  but  a  matter  of  honor  and 
good  breeding.  One  so  reticent  by  nature  must  other 
wise  have  constantly  offended  those  who  strove  to  de 
serve  well. 


One  must  admit  that  the  venerating  applause  at  this 
period  of  "the  man  who  united  all  hearts"  had  a  modi 
cum  of  foolish  adulation.  The  tributes  paid  him  in  his 
day  were  quite  often  dictated  by  bad  prosers  and  worse 
poets.  A  college  acquaintance  with  Latin  textbooks 
or  a  decent  familiarity  with  the  graces  of  Addison  and 
Pope  inspired  dullards  with  a  desire  to  ooze  out  in 
essays  or  odes  to  Columbia  and  Columbia's  favorite 
son,  which  appeared  in  the  newspapers.  Allegory 
ran  wild,  while  commonplace  metaphors  and  tropes, 
like  the  fife  and  drum  airs,  graced  every  holiday.  Upon 
its  first  recurrence  after  the  inauguration,  Washing 
ton's  birthday  was  celebrated  in  leading  towns  with 
public  marks  of  honor ;  a  custom  the  Cincinnati  of  New 
York  helped  institute  and  which  has  never  since  fallen 
into  disuse,  though  to  no  other  American's  lot  has 
fallen  such  continuous  distinction.  Birthday  and  pro 
cession  odes  became  accordingly  the  favorite  doggerel 
of  the  day,  many  of  them  having  that  smack  of  Tate 
and  Brady  which  bespoke  a  psalm-singing  age.  One 
song  began: 

"Arrayed  in  glory  bright 
Columbia's  saviour  comes." 

Another  proceeded  in  like  strain : 

"His  glory  shines  beyond  the  skies, 
From  Heaven  proceeds." 


26  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

With  stanzas  like  these  set  to  appropriate  music,  a 
choir  would  stand  before  the  President  when  he  ap 
peared  upon  a  public  tour,  and  launch  the  loud  paean  at 
a  face  which  relaxed  nothing  of  its  habitual  expression 
of  calm  serenity. 

This  was  an  age  over  which  the  royal  atmosphere 
still  hung,  though  Washington  was  praised  as  one 
whose  career  put  kings  and  tyrants  to  the  blush.  Such 
ascriptions  were  heard  as,  "Long  live  George  Washing 
ton  !"  or  "God  bless  your  reign !"  Religious,  municipal, 
and  social  bodies  preferred  continually  their  addresses 
of  congratulation  for  a  gracious  acknowledgment.  All 
were  obsequious.  Indeed,  the  plain  words  with  which 
the  Quaker  selectman  of  Salem  welcomed  the  Presi 
dent  to  that  town  contrasted  very  strongly  with  the 
other  speeches  made  upon  his  Eastern  tour.*  Wash 
ington's  reverence  for  religion  furthermore  stimulated 
unduly  the  narration  of  apocryphal  anecdotes  for  the 
benefit  of  the  young.  The  administration  press  more 
over  inclined  to  servile  flattery;  and  though  it  were 
only  his  "black  Sam's"  advertisement  for  provisions  to 
supply  the  Presidential  table,  the  disposition  was  irre 
sistible  to  tack  a  moral  like  that  of  ^Esop's  fables  upon 
everything  that  Washington  did  or  indirectly  sanc 
tioned. 

Much  of  this  extravagance  Washington  permitted 
from  real  appreciation  of  a  sincere  personal  devotion, 
however  awkwardly  expressed,  but  far  more  because 
he  could  not  possibly  avoid  it.  To  every  breath  of 

*  There  was  much  merriment  in  the  public  prints  over  the  sim 
ple  eloquence  of  this  Mr.  Northey,  though  it  evidently  touched 
the  right  chord :  "Friend  Washington,  we  are  glad  to  see  thee,  and 
in  behalf  of  the  inhabitants  bid  thee  a  hearty  welcome  to  Salem." 
See  Boston  Centinel,  November  7,  1789. 


CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON      27 

blame  he  was  so  keenly  sensitive  that  he  sought  pri 
vately  to  justify  himself  to  friends  who  censured  these 
stately  honors ;  hinting  at  what  was  doubtless  true,  that 
he  often  parried  the  efforts  of  others  to  make  them 
statelier  still.  But  beyond  this  we  must  accept  Wash 
ington  as  a  representative  man  of  his  times,  not  free 
from  the  prevalent  notions  of  official  dignity,  nor  given 
to  theorizing  upon  the  ideal  government  where  all  are 
rulers;  as  a  man,  moreover,  who  estimated  justly  his 
own  historical  position  and  the  immeasurable  services 
he  had  rendered  to  the  Union  of  these  States.  An 
American  to  the  core,  a  sincere  patriot,  believing  in  the 
future  grandeur  of  the  republic,  the  only  reward  from 
his  fellow-countrymen  to  which  he  attached  any  per 
sonal  value  whatever  was  their  gratitude,  and  upon  this 
he  would  throw  himself  to  enjoy  its  buoying  influence 
like  a  bold  swimmer  who  dashes  into  the  sea.  Appar 
ently  the  love  of  approbation  grew  upon  him  with 
years;  but  through  life  he  was  too  well  balanced  in 
temperament  to  crave  it  inordinately  and  too  self- 
respecting  to  court  it. 

Those  who  view  Washington  through  the  refracting 
medium  of  his  own  age  are  apt  either  to  exaggerate 
or  belittle  his  character,  according  to  their  susceptible- 
ness.  To  a  generation  of  image-breakers  heedless  of 
moral  restraints,  the  sceptical  disposition  must  be  to 
take  such  a  character  to  pieces  and  reconstruct  from 
the  fragments,  if  possible,  a  man  with  as  little  real 
reverence  as  one  of  themselves,  and  a  hypocrite  besides. 
No  such  reconstruction  is  possible  here  while  truth  re 
mains  a  jewel;  for  Washington  was  as  genuine  a  man 
as  ever  came  from  his  Maker's  hand.  His  whole  life  is 
an  open  book  to  his  countrymen,  wherein  the  acts  and 
pursuits  of  his  mature  years  are  very  fully  recorded. 


28  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Constantly  in  contact  with  the  public  for  twenty-five 
years,  seen  by  natives  and  foreigners,  the  memorable 
incidents  of  his  life  during  this  period  are  preserved 
as  well  as  his  private  impressions.  His  letters  have 
been  explored  and  even  spurious  ones  imputed  to  him. 
It  is  strangely  significant  that  military  and  political 
rivals  who  plotted  against  him  unsuccessfully,  those 
who  fought  with  him  and  those  he  conquered,  have  left 
on  record  one  and  the  same  tribute  to  his  greatness  of 
soul.  With  possibly  the  exception  of  downright  John 
Adams,  whose  ardent  but  jealous  ambition  was  vexed 
at  having  to  encounter  for  his  superior  the  silent  soldier 
he  had  brought  forward  in  '75  to  command  the  army, 
no  great  contemporary  who  survived  Washington  ever 
upon  a  final  retrospect  detracted  from  his  fame.  On 
the  contrary,  Jefferson,  who  had  a  keen  eye  for  faults, 
and  who,  of  all  Washington's  intimates,  borrowed  least 
from  his  lustre,  has  left  one  of  the  most  graceful  and 
doubtless  one  of  the  most  discriminating  of  tributes  to 
his  memory  ever  penned.  Out  from  these  clouds  of 
incense  which  gather  now  and  then  to  obscure  our 
vision  emerges  always  the  same  Washington,  lofty, 
symmetrical,  eternal,  like  a  mountain  peak  which  is 
seen  piercing  the  morning  mists. 

Let  us  take,  if  we  can,  the  proportions  of  this  noble 
character  as  it  stands  out  nakedly  against  a  clear  sky. 
We  are  not  in  the  first  place  to  ascribe  to  Washington 
intellectual  endowments  of  the  highest  order.  In 
quickness,  fertility  of  resources,  and  freshness  of 
thought,  he  was  surpassed  by  two  certainly  of  his  first 
cabinet  advisers  and  the  Vice-President  besides.  Nor 
was  he  a  scholar,  a  well-read  man,  so  much  as  one  of 
a  methodical  turn  and  observant  mind,  whose  travel 
and  personal  experience  with  men  and  affairs  rendered 


CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON       29 

him  the  best  interpreter  of  the  America  of  his  times. 
The  organizing  faculty,  which  in  him  was  splendidly 
developed,  and  thoroughly  systematic  habits  aided  a 
retentive  mind  of  large  natural  powers;  adding  to 
which  a  patient,  conscientious,  sleepless  devotion  to 
whatever  undertaking  was  in  hand,  and  an  unfailing 
patriotism,  we  have  a  man  who  was  born  to  execute, 
to  humble  his  king,  to  make  and  keep  America  free. 

But  Washington's  best  mental  gift  was  a  sound  and 
discriminating  judgment.  The  balance  of  his  mental 
and  moral  powers  was  truly  superb.  Neither  passion 
nor  interest  could  blind  him  when  it  came  to  deliber 
ating  between  men  or  methods.  He  first  sought  the 
best  advice  he  could  gain  from  various  sources,  next  he 
weighed  it  well,  and  finally,  after  making  his  choice, 
adhered  consistently  to  both  course  and  conclusion. 
Free,  however,  from  that  pride  of  origination  which 
keeps  so  many  great  intellects  obstinate  beyond  the 
conviction  of  error,  he  took  his  bearings  anew  as  pru 
dence  might  dictate,  and  with  a  steady  hand  on  the 
helm  watched  constantly  the  horizon.  He  was  thus  in 
civil  affairs  a  splendid  practical  administrator,  though 
necessarily  conservative,  and  a  thorn  to  party  leaders; 
not  infallible,  yet  never  far  astray  as  concerned  present 
action.  As  a  military  leader  there  was  danger  that  one 
so  deliberative  might  on  some  unexpected  turn  be  dis 
concerted  by  the  foe  and  outgeneralled,  and  so  it  had 
happened  more  than  once;  but  for  a  protracted  cam 
paign  he  stood  well  the  test,  and  where  he  advanced 
and  had  prepared  the  surprise  he  came  out  conqueror. 

Washington's  moral  and  religious  traits  of  character 
have  been  constantly  eulogized.  That  he  was  a  true 
Christian  cannot  be  doubted,  but  what  most  strikingly 
impresses  is  that  he  was  a  Christian  who  lived  by  rule 


30  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

rather  than  impulse.  The  practice  was  by  no  means 
uncommon  for  persons  in  his  day  to  frame  a  series  of 
maxims  which  should  regulate  their  daily  behavior, 
and  secrete  them  in  some  private  place ;  but  those  which 
Washington  is  known  to  have  prepared  for  himself, 
or  at  least  made  use  of,  were  neither  obtrusively  pious 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  on  the  other  framed  after  that 
common  Chesterfield  pattern  which  would  catalogue 
smirks  and  bows  among  the  virtues;  they  were  sober, 
temperate,  just,  and  manly.  That  same  reflective  dis 
position  which  Washington  displayed  in  public  affairs 
pervaded  his  whole  inner  life.  His  self-examination 
in  lonely  hours  must  have  been  scrutinizing  and  se 
vere. 

Washington  most  probably  had  personal  ambition. 
His  career  indicates  this,  and  particularly  the  wealthy 
marriage  which  greatly  promoted  his  advancement. 
But  his  ambition  was  always  of  that  elevated  kind 
which  makes  one  the  willing  instrument  for  accom 
plishing  beneficent  ends.  And  here  the  rare  temperance 
of  Washington,  the  just  equilibrium  to  maintain 
which  was  a  life-long  duty,  stood  him  in  good  stead, 
for  he  remained  a  steadfast  patriot  when  tempted  to 
make  himself  a  monarch.  Never  violent  or  vindictive 
in  action,  he  stands  that  rarest  of  the  world's  military 
heroes — lord  of  himself.  Yet  Washington  was  not 
free  from  the  common  infirmities,  but  on  the  contrary 
a  man  of  naturally  fierce  passions;  and  there  were 
moments  of  provocation,  even  in  this  tranquil  autumn 
of  his  life,  when  he  would  give  way  to  a  violent  out 
burst  of  language  such  as  made  listeners  cower  and 
tremble.  But  his  wrath  was  soon  spent;  he  quickly 
recovered  himself;  and  when  it  came  to  the  decision 
justice  inflexible  had  regained  her  seat. 


CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON      31 

It  may  well  excite  surprise  that  one  in  outer  life  so 
unemotional,  so  reserved  of  manner,  so  cold  almost  to 
haughtiness,  should  in  a  republic  have  inspired  so 
much  popular  enthusiasm  as  unquestionably  did  this 
man.  Americans  of  our  times  catch  his  radiance  like 
that  of  some  incandescent  light  which  shines  without 
emitting  heat ;  but  the  Americans  of  a  century  ago  were 
perhaps  more  susceptible  to  heroic  impressions,  and 
regarded  birth  and  high-breeding  differently.  And  in 
every  age  of  a  republic,  military  courage  calls  forth  the 
common  admiration,  and  so,  too,  does  sincerity  of 
purpose.  Two  courses  lie  open  to  popular  preferment : 
one  by  exhibiting  captivating  manners  and  a  desire  to 
conciliate  every  one;  the  other  by  performing  well  the 
task  that  lies  nearest  home  and  leaving  the  multitude 
to  gain  a  better  acquaintance.  The  former  is  preferred 
by  small  men  who  seek  official  lustre  from  small  occa 
sions,  but  the  few  truly  great  and  well-deserving  who 
have  gained  distinction  when  great  occasion  has  dis 
covered  and  tested  them,  sink  deepest  in  the  popular 
heart  after  they  once  enter;  they  are  the  stronger  for 
their  self-poise,  and  praised  for  that  which  places  them 
in  contrast  with  other  men  and  stands  opposed  to 
the  contemptible.  Washington,  if  not  cordial,  lively, 
or  sociable,  was  at  all  events  courteous,  considerate, 
and  just  in  his  dealings.  That  desolation  of  greatness, 
which  so  distinguishes  him  above  other  Americans,  for 
bade  favoritism,  so  that  those  under  him  became  emu 
lous  of  promotion  by  merit. 

Socially  speaking,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  Wash 
ington  had  a  private  life.  He  cherished  no  bosom 
friends,  though  interesting  himself  in  young  people; 
and  among  leading  men  of  his  day  those  who  won  his 
heart  the  closest  were  Hamilton  and  the  impulsive 


32  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Lafayette.  Yet  he  had  no  convivial  Bentinck  like  Wil 
liam  of  Orange,  whom  in  many  points  he  resembled; 
and  probably  no  person  living  partook  freely  of  his 
confidence.  He  married  when  past  the  season  of  impet 
uous  youth;  he  had  no  child  of  his  own,  but  to  the 
offspring  of  his  wife  by  her  former  marriage  he  was 
like  an  own  parent,  though  in  domestic  life  he  was  con 
stant  rather  than  demonstrative.  Close  as  were  his  offi 
cial  relations  with  other  public  men,  he  repelled  famil 
iarity  ;  and  when  one  by  no  means  unconspicuous  * 
came  up  and  saluted  him  in  a  jocular  manner  with  a 
slap  on  the  shoulder,  Washington  turned  upon  him 
with  a  look  that  withered  him  into  silence.  But  care 
fully  as  he  exacted  the  respect  which  he  felt  others 
owed  him,  he  was  equally  scrupulous  in  rendering  to 
each  his  due  in  return.  The  just  balance  was  the  prin 
ciple  he  applied  to  all  actions,  public  or  private,  high 
or  low,  to  hospitality,  to  deeds  of  charity,  and  to  the 
economies  alike  of  a  nation  or  his  own  household. 

It  appears  certain  that  Washington  had  neither  wit 
nor  a  salient  humor.  He  conversed  sensibly  and  well 
with  the  guest  at  table,  but  a  witty  sally  disturbed  him, 
and  to  anything  like  the  thrust  of  ridicule  he  was 
keenly  sensitive.  No  bon  mot  is  known  to  have  escaped 
his  lips.  Young  ladies  pleased  him  with  their  vivacity, 
and  in  one  or  two  burlesque  scenes  on  his  plantation, 
which  cannot  be  funnily  described,  he  astonished  the 
household  by  breaking  out  into  a  long  and  hearty 
laugh.  Otherwise  his  face,  unless  he  was  angry,  wore 
that  calm  and  placid  expression  of  repose  with  which 
his  pictures  make  us  so  familiar.  And  yet  a  dry,  almost 

*  G.  Morris.  See  Van  Buren's  Political  Parties,  p.  106,  where 
this  is  narrated  as  an  incident  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention 
of  1787. 


CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON      33 

sardonic  sense  of  humor  peeps  out  of  his  correspond 
ence  in  by-places,  of  a  quality  still  better  illustrated 
perhaps  by  the  authenticated  instance  where  he  turned 
sharply  upon  a  little  boy  who  was  running  after  him 
from  his  tailor's  admiringly  through  a  retired  street 
of  Philadelphia,  and  taking  off  his  hat  made  him  a  pro 
found  salutation.*  For  unless  the  ludicrous  aspect  of 
the  curiosity  he  everywhere  excited  sometimes  amused 
the  great  man  he  cannot  have  been  human. 

Washington's  peculiar  temperament  and  habits  are 
largely  explained  by  reference  to  his  training  and  per 
sonal  experience.  Born  of  a  good  Virginian  family, 
he  was  left  fatherless  at  an  early  age,  with  the  cares 
of  a  large  household,  only  moderately  provided .  for, 
devolving  much  upon  him  as  the  most  trusted  son  of 
a  widowed  mother.  His  education  was  received  at 
home  under  her  refining  influence.  By  profession  a 
surveyor,  before  reaching  majority  his  duties  took  him 
into  unsettled  regions  on  long  expeditions,  remote  from 
congenial  society;  then  serving  under  Braddock,  his 
military  experience  began  among  the  frontier  Indians. 
An  early  love  disappointment  saddened  a  heart  whose 
hidden  depths  must  have  been  stirred  profoundly.  Be 
coming  an  independent  and  wealthy  planter,  rising  to 
social  eminence,  the  Revolution  called  him  forth  to  take 
the  lead  of  the  American  armies,  in  which  post  he  con 
tinued  through  his  prime,  issuing  orders  and  maturing 
plans  which  required  long  deliberation  and  the  utmost 
secrecy.  And  thus  had  a  shy,  meditative,  proud 
spirited  youth  grown  into  a  serious,  reticent,  well-bal 
anced  man,  whose  chief  relaxation  consisted  in  being 
publicly  entertained  and  publicly  entertaining. 

Long  use  of  the  pen  and  contact  with  the  best  think- 
*  See  Isaac  T.  Hopper's  Recollections. 


34  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ers  in  America  trained  Washington  into  a  ready  writer, 
capable  of  expressing  himself  in  a  clear,  terse,  and 
impressive  style,  imperfect  as  had  been  his  education. 
But  he  had  no  pride  of  authorship,  and  with  the  inces 
sant  official  demands  made  upon  him  for  civil  and  mili 
tary  papers,  he  had  long  since  fallen  into  the  course  of 
permitting  others  to  draft  documents  for  his  signature. 
Yet  in  the  component  of  those  voluminous  writings 
which  pass  current  as  his  own,  whatever  pure  gold 
others  may  have  supplied,  the  test  and  the  stamp  of  the 
coinage  is  his. 

Of  Washington's  physical  courage  there  can  be  no 
shadow  of  a  doubt ;  he  gave  orders  calmly  while  bullets 
whizzed  about  him;  he  was  every  inch  a  soldier.  But 
his  moral  courage  is  not  to  be  appreciated  without  con 
sidering  that  he  protected  his  military  honor  in  an  age 
of  duels  without  ever  sending  or  provoking  a  challenge. 
An  open  enemy  quailed  before  his  eye  and  the  cold, 
rebuking  dignity  into  which  he  froze  when  offended, 
while  treacherous  friends  were  most  often  disarmed  by 
his  genuine  magnanimity. 

On  the  whole  it  is  the  predominance  of  the  moral 
over  the  mental  and  physical  qualities,  or  rather  their 
admirable  union,  that  most  impresses  us.  For  strat 
egic  skill,  consummate  policy,  profoundness  of  views, 
or  even  originality,  Washington  is  not  pre-eminent 
among  the  world's  heroes,  although,  as  one  has  well 
remarked,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  he  saw  more  clearly 
than  any  other  man  of  his  times.  But  as  the  man  of 
safe  action,  as  the  fittest  creation  of  a  revolutionary 
age,  as  the  embodiment  of  whatever  was  grandest  in 
a  grand  cause,  as  the  filial  ^Eneas  who  bore  America 
on  his  shoulders  from  darkness  to  light,  his  name  is 
imperishable. 


FRANKLIN   AND   ABOLITION         35 

Early  in  February,  1789,  memorials  were  presented 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  favoring  emancipa 
tion  :  first  from  the  Quakers  of  the  Middle  States ;  next 
from  the  Abolition  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  Frank 
lin's  name  heading  the  latter.  "Equal  liberty,"  claimed 
the  abolition  petition,  "was  originally  the  portion  and 
is  still  the  birthright  of  all  men."  And  its  prayer  to 
Congress  was,  "That  you  will  promote  mercy  and  jus 
tice  towards  this  distressed  race ;  and  that  you  will  step 
to  the  very  verge  of  the  power  vested  in  you  for  dis 
couraging  every  species  of  traffic  in  the  persons  of  our 
fellow-men." 

Franklin  died  a  few  weeks  after  Congress  had  dis 
posed  of  the  memorial  which  bore  his  illus-  I7QO 
trious  signature,  and  in  two  continents  were  Apnl  I7- 
bestowed  upon  a  private  citizen  and  man  of  the  peo 
ple  funeral  honors  which  kings  might  have  envied.  In 
this  last  public  act  of  his  life,  the  only  one  in  fact  which 
associates  his  name  closely  with  America's  new  epoch, 
the  veteran  patriot,  whom  some  House  debaters  sup 
posed  to  be  in  his  dotage,  proved  himself  as  clear 
sighted  as  ever, — a  statesman,  sagacious  and  philan 
thropic  in  advance  of  his  times. 


As  to  official  intercourse  between  Congress  and  the 
Executive,  the  course  first  fixed  upon  was  not  regularly 
continued  afterwards.  Washington  delivered  his  an 
nual  messages  orally  in  the  presence  of  the  two  Houses, 
as  did  his  immediate  successor,  formal  responses  fol 
lowing  after  the  manner  already  alluded  to.  With  that 
over-eagerness  to  magnify  their  special  importance  by 
establishing  close  and  mysterious  relations  with  the 
Chief  Magistrate,  which  Senators  were  seen  to  have 


36  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

displayed  at  the  first  assembling  of  Congress,  a  minor 
ity  of  that  body  attempted  to  procure  the  President's 
personal  attendance  for  making  his  nominations,  which 
was  to  be  followed  by  a  ballot  taken  in  his  presence. 
But  this  was  not  approved  by  the  general  voice  of  the 
Senate;  and  Washington  himself,  who,  at  the  first  ses 
sion,  would  sometimes  consult  the  Senate  in  person, 
and  more  frequently  sent  the  head  of  a  department  to 
make  explanation  of  official  matters  requiring  the 
action  of  that  branch,  utterly  discontinued  the  practice 
upon  reflection,  substituting  the  rule  that  all  executive 
communications  to  either  house,  except  the  opening 
message,  should  be  in  writing.  This  latter  course  bet 
ter  preserved  the  dignity  and  independence  of  the 
Executive;  for,  whatever  the  public  advantage  in 
requiring  ministers  of  state  to  attend  open  deliberations 
of  the  legislature  and  make  such  exposition  of  the 
administration  plans  as  to  fix  the  public  attention  and 
induce  suitable  action,  there  can  be  none  whatever  in 
their  secret  affiliation  with  a  branch  which  sits  with 
closed  doors  and  can  but  partially  accomplish  the  execu 
tive  wishes.  The  confirmation  of  all  treaties  and 
appointments  vested,  however,  in  the  senatorial  dis 
cretion,  and,  notwithstanding  executive  communica 
tions  were  now  made  in  writing,  the  President  would 
still  ask  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate  in  form 
ing  an  Indian  treaty. 


The  political  opponents  of  the  Hamilton  Federalists 

had  now  begun  to  assume  the  regular  style 

of  "Republicans."    To  Federalists,  however, 

who  prided  themselves  upon  their  old  party  name,  it 

seemed  rather  a  Southern  faction,  "outs,"  who  were 


NEW   PARTY    MOVEMENTS  37 

jealous  of  the  "ins,"  the  old  dregs  and  fceces  of  Anti- 
Federalism  once  more  in  ferment.  On  their  own  part, 
the  present  fealty  of  Federalist  leaders  was  not  so  much 
to  the  constitution,  in  which  all  classes  of  citizens  now 
fairly  acquiesced,  as  to  the  broad  construction  of  con 
stitutional  powers,  and  to  the  funding,  the  bank,  and 
other  great  features  of  the  Hamilton  system  of  finance. 
Hamilton  himself  originated  the  ideas  which  they  sup 
ported.  Voters  will  cling  long  to  party  names  and 
traditions  and  to  party  favorites,  under  any  circum 
stances;  and,  with  Washington  at  the  head,  patriots, 
irrespective  of  party,  were  well  satisfied.  The  common 
people  had  not  as  yet  learned  to  use  their  strength; 
and  Ames  put  the  patrician  idea  modestly  enough  when 
he  asserted  that  "the  men  of  sense  and  property,  even 
a  little  above  the  multitude,  wish  to  keep  the  govern 
ment  in  force  enough  to  govern."  As  against  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  the  States  where  these  opposition 
elements  were  becoming  most  active,  and  whose  legis 
latures  had  recently  led  off  in  attempting,  among  other 
popular  measures,  to  force  open  the  doors  of  the  United 
States  Senate,  the  Federal  leaders,  strongly  dominant 
in  New  England,  hoped  to  win  by  keeping  New  York 
and  the  Middle  States  in  alliance  on  their  own  side. 

While  conservatives,  aristocrats,  the  commercial 
class,  the  timorous,  and  the  friends  of  a  powerful  cen 
tral  rule  thus  gravitated  towards  Hamilton  as  their 
natural  leader  and  exponent,  the  liberty-loving,  those 
jealous  of  class  supremacy  and  court  manners,  they 
who  detested  money-changers  and  the  new  methods  of 
growing  rich,  together  with  the  floating  remnants  of 
the  Anti-Federal  and  State  rights  party,  were  irresist 
ibly  attracted  towards  Jefferson,  whose  superior  talents 
and  social  eminence  made  his  devotion  to  their  cause 


38  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

appear  all  the  more  captivating.  Probably  no  two  men 
holding  subordinate  station  under  an  American  Pres 
ident  can  ever  again  so  strongly  influence  powerful 
parties  by  their  personal  example  as  did  Hamilton  and 
Jefferson  in  this  and  the  succeeding  years.  Nor  was 
their  present  influence  owing  so  much  to  their  rival 
ambitions  as  to  the  genuine  devotedness  of  each  to  the 
politics  and  political  methods  he  professed. 


CHAPTER   III. 

SECOND     ADMINISTRATION     OF     GEORGE     WASHINGTON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Third  Congress.  March  4,  1793-March  3,  1795. — 
§  II.  Period  of  Fourth  Congress.  March  4,  1795-March  3, 
1797- 

A  HANDBOOK,  prepared  in  1793  at  the  Treas 
ury  Department,  gives  a  succinct  view  of  the 
condition  of  the  United  States  at  that  date, 
and  sets  forth  the  prospective  advantages  afforded  to 
families  seeking  a  new  home  in  America.  By  Thomas 
Cooper,  too,  an  Englishman  of  liberal  tendencies,  the 
same  flattering  picture  of  American  life  is  also  presented 
as  the  result  of  his  own  personal  tour  of  inspection.  A 
land  of  liberty  was  here  pictured,  where  public  credit 
stood  firmly,  where  the  taxes  were  light,  and  where  a 
happy  mediocrity  of  fortune  prevailed,  instead  of  those 
depressing  contrasts  of  wealth  and  poverty  with  which 
Europe  was  sadly  familiar. 

Land  and  landed  products  were  the  great  source  of 
our  national  wealth,  as  thus  exhibited.  Yet  here  was  a 
considerable  commerce,  in  addition,  encouraged  by 
drawbacks  and  the  absence  of  all  export  duties.  Man 
ufactures  had  been  steadily  growing  since  1789. 
These  consisted  still  of  articles  of  necessity  rather 
than  the  products  of  elegance  and  refinement. 

But,  most  of  all,  the  United  States  was  a  nation  of 
farmers  and  planters,  gaining  a  livelihood  from  the  soil ; 
and,  with  land  cheap,  the  cost  of  labor  high,  and  room 
for  all,  the  European  welcomed  the  prospect  of  gain- 


40  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ing  an  honest  livelihood  in  a  country  where  all  were 
equals,  and  a  man  could  marry  and  rear  a  family  with 
out  the  depressing  thought  that  for  each  new  mouth  to 
be  fed  his  scanty  crust  must  be  broken  into  smaller 
fragments.  To  the  down-trodden  of  the  Old  World 
such  a  prospect  was  most  inspiriting,  and  the  hope,  too, 
of  owning  the  fee  of  his  own  farm,  instead  of  having 
to  rent  the  land  from  a  peer  or  a  peer's  tenant,  and  so 
devote  the  chief  fruits  of  the  earth  to  pampering  others 
in  idleness. 

To  the  foreigner  seeking  to  become  a  farmer  and 
freeman  in  the  New  World,  the  Middle  section  of  the 
United  States  offered  at  this  time  the  greatest  induce 
ments.  New  England  appeared  a  sterile  region,  and 
the  soil  was  here  so  parcelled  out  among  a  large  and 
thrifty  people  that  the  price  of  lands  was  high;  her 
own  sons  had  begun  to  roam  westward  for  these  very 
reasons.  From  the  Southern  States  one  was  kept 
because  of  a  climate  unfavorable  to  toil  and  still  more 
unfavorable  institutions.  The  far  West,  as  yet,  was 
for  those  only  who  were  willing  to  endure  the  greatest 
hardship  and  social  privations;  and  such  had  become 
the  dread  of  Indian  massacre  since  our  late  military 
disasters  that  the  pioneer  slept  with  his  loaded  rifle  by 
his  side,  and  started  at  the  screech-owl's  call  as  though 
he  heard  the  yell  of  approaching  savages.  To  Central 
New  York  one  might  turn  with  favor,  in  whose  happy 
valleys  the  strange  mixture  of  white  and  red  inhabi 
tants  was  symbolized  by  a  corresponding  fusion  of 
geographical  names — where  the  modern  Rome  and 
Utica,  Syracuse  and  happy  Palmyra  were  gradually 
becoming  founded  along  the  Mohawk  and  in  the 
Oneida  and  Ontario  country.  Hither  had  the  New 
England  emigrants  resorted  in  large  numbers  of  late. 


THE   PIONEER   FARMER  41 

But  rapidly  as  New  York  grew,  Pennsylvania  seemed, 
to  the  emigrant  fanner,  the  garden  State  of  America. 
Of  peasant  emigration  to  the  United  States  the  greater 
part  was  drained  at  this  time  from  Ireland  and  Ger 
many.  And  it  was  quite  customary  at  this  period  for 
such  of  the  humbler  emigrants,  Germans  more  par 
ticularly,  as  could  not  pay  their  passage,  to  make  agree 
ment  with  the  captain  for  selling  their  services  for  a 
suitable  term  to  such  Americans  as  might  be  willing 
to  give  them  employment  on  their  arrival  and  advance 
the  cost  of  transportation.  These  "redemptioners,"  as 
they  were  called,  performed  much  menial  service  in 
Philadelphia,  and  it  frequently  happened  that  the 
expense  of  needful  clothing  and  supplies,  furnished  by 
the  employer,  would  cause  the  term  of  one's  contract 
bondage  to  be  considerably  prolonged. 

Once  free  to  choose  his  own  plans  of  life,  and  blessed 
with  spare  cash,  the  foreign  emigrant,  like  the  native 
pioneer  who  sought  to  become  an  independent  tiller 
of  the  soil,  looked  about  for  a  suitable  spot  to  cultivate. 
The  land  capitalists  and  their  agents  approached  him, 
of  course,  with  offers  of  sale,  more  or  less  tempting, 
as  to  the  tracts  they  wished  to  get  rid  of.  Nor  by  1 797 
was  it  certain  that  a  capable  and  industrious  farmer 
might  not  get  thousands  of  acres  in  the  back  country 
at  a  nominal  cost,  provided  he  would  settle  and  draw 
a  colony  about  him;  for  that  was  the  time  when  the 
load  of  wild  lands  was  a  millstone  upon  many  a  specu 
lator's  shoulders,  and  Morris,  whose  indorsement  had 
once  sustained  the  sinking  credit  of  the  Union,  got 
lodged  in  a  debtor's  prison.  A  discreet  settler  took 
care  that  his  soil  was  fertile  and  the  land  sufficiently 
near  to  a  good  market ;  if  there  was  a  continuous  water 
connection  with  some  prosperous  port,  all  the  better. 


42  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Hickory  and  walnut  were  the  signs  of  rich  land;  that 
which  bore  firs  he  avoided,  if  possible,  as  barren  and 
unproductive.  Farms  in  the  new  country  rarely 
exceeded  three  hundred  acres;  one  hundred  and  fifty 
was  a  very  fair  average. 

After  buying  his  land  arid  taking  possession  in  the 
spring  of  the  year,  the  farmer  would  cut  down  a  few 
trees  to  build  him  and  his  family  a  temporary  home. 
His  neighbors,  if  there  were  any  for  miles  about,  good- 
naturedly  lent  their  assistance,  and  in  three  or  four  days 
a  building  of  unhewn  logs  rose  ready  for  habitation. 
Roughly  put  together,  the  interstices  stopped  with  rails, 
calked  with  straw  or  moss  and  daubed  with  mud,  and 
the  roof  covered  with  nothing  better  than  thin  staves 
split  out  of  oak  or  ash  and  fastened  on  by  heavy 
poles,  such  a  dwelling  was  a  "log  cabin ;"  but  a  house 
of  a  better  sort,  especially  if  made  of  hewn  logs,  having 
the  crannies  neatly  stopped  with  stones  and  plaster, 
and  a  shingled  roof,  would  be  styled  a  "log  house." 
An  American  log  house,  with  glass  windows  and  a 
chimney,  was  quite  as  comfortable  as  the  better  cot 
tages  of  English  farmers ;  and  on  its  stoop,  some  bright 
afternoon,  might  be  seen  a  healthy  woman  awaiting 
her  husband's  return,  and  dressed  to  please  him,  who 
dandled  a  babe  in  her  arms,  while  handsome  boys  and 
girls  played  before  her  or  clung  timidly  to  her  calico 
gown.  Log  cabins,  too,  were  often  the  abode  of  a 
modest  refinement,  though  commonly  made  far  from 
convenient,  for  they  were  usually  without  windows 
and  had  only  a  hole  at  the  top  for  the  smoke  to  escape 
through. 

An  American  forest  stood  grand  in  the  mass,  the  tall 
trees  interlocking  their  branches,  with  many  a  pictu- 


THE  PIONEER   FARMER  43 

resque  scene  at  the  clearings.  But,  as  compared  with 
English  woods,  their  trunks  did  not  seem  thick  and 
mossy,  nor  their  foliage  so  dense  and  rich.  This  made 
the  backwoodsman's  work  the  lighter,  however,  and 
the  ring  of  his  axe  was  the  bugle  of  civilization's 
advancing  host.  Grubbing  the  land  he  meant  to  cul 
tivate,  by  removing  all  the  small  trees  and  under 
growth,  of  which  he  made  bonfires  on  the  spot,  he  next 
proceeded  to  cut  down  as  many  trees  of  the  larger  sort 
nearest  his  building  as  seemed  suitable,  girdling  others, 
without  delay,  so  as  to  destroy  the  vegetation  of  the 
branches,  and  let  in  the  light  and  air  to  his  next  sea 
son's  crop. 

Turning  his  new  soil  in  May  with  a  ploughshare  or 
harrow,  the  settler  dropped  Indian  corn  into  the  earth, 
and  was  gladdened  by  a  large  harvest  in  October.  A 
wholesome  store  of  cornmeal  and  hominy  was  thus  laid 
by  for  the  family  consumption,  with  abundant  prov 
ender  besides  for  cattle  and  poultry.  His  sheep  and 
hogs,  if  he  had  any,  ranged  the  forest  for  their  food. 

Once  a  freeholder  the  pioneer  stood  firmly,  granting 
industrious  habits  and  a  stock  of  good  health.  For  a 
few  years,  indeed,  it  was  a  lonely  and  rough  life,  with 
little  social  comfort  or  relaxation  beyond  what  the 
secluded  family  might  find  in  one  another.  The  father 
and  his  oldest  sons  must  roam  the  woods,  with  dog 
and  gun,  to  shoot  deer,  raccoons,  and  squirrels  for  fresh 
meat,  whose  skins  they  bartered  with  the  nearest  store 
or  trading-house  in  order  to  procure  clothing,  tea,  and 
sugar  for  the  household ;  or,  on  a  cloudy  afternoon,  they 
dropped  hook  and  line  in  the  lake  or  along  the  nearest 
stream  to  secure  the  next  morning's  breakfast.  But 
as  years  go  on  the  land  becomes  cleared,  a  few  more 


44  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

acres  each  season.  One  begins  raising  wheat,  tobacco, 
or  other  crops,  which  should  yield  him  a  pecuniary 
return ;  the  kitchen  garden  and  orchards  are  seen ;  the 
increase  of  his  live  stock  adds  to  his  wealth  and  com 
fort,  and,  still  more,  the  growth  of  a  blooming  family 
of  sons  and  daughters,  for  whose  future  he  feels  no 
anxiety.  Neighbors  approach  more  closely.  A  saw 
mill  and  competent  builders  appear,  and  at  length  he 
moves  from  the  log  house  into  his  more  pretentious  and 
permanent  dwelling  of  boards.  Perhaps  the  township 
grows  so  rapidly  that,  ere  he  has  passed  his  prime,  he 
becomes  a  trader,  a  social  leader,  a  patriarch,  or,  haply, 
a  politician.  His  girls  grow  up  like  wild  roses.  His 
boys,  with  the  usual  allowances  for  black  sheep,  elbow 
their  way  through  the  world ;  and  upon  some  yet  uncul 
tivated  portion  of  his  tract  he  may  fence  off  the  married 
son,  whose  taste  is  not  for  roaming,  and  tell  the  young 
couple  they  must  coax  their  fortune  from  mother 
nature  as  he  has  done. 

If,  however,  the  pioneer  fail  of  success  (and  ill-suc 
cess  in  life,  wherever  and  whatever  the  pursuit,  is  often 
traceable  to  family  traits,  such  as  despondency,  impa 
tience,  or  too  romantic  a  disposition),  he  soon  quits 
the  spot  first  purchased  and  is  off  with  his  family  for 
other  acres  seven  or  eight  hundred  miles  away,  there 
to  try  his  fortunes  anew,  with  the  odds  more  against 
him  at  each  change.  If  idle  or  dissipated  in  habits,  he 
degenerates  into  a  demi-savage ;  his  scanty  clearing  ill 
supports  the  wife  and  children  huddled  into  the  chinky 
hut,  and  they  must  sow  and  reap  for  themselves  or 
perish,  while  he  wanders  the  forest  for  days,  with  no 
company  but  his  hound,  his  rifle,  and  the  fatal  flask. 
Society  grows  hateful  and  burdensome  to  him,  and  his 
earthly  curse  is  still  to  wander  and  to  wander,  leaping 


PHILADELPHIA  AS  THE  CAPITAL    45 

before    each    advancing    wave    of    population    which 
washes  inward  from  the  Atlantic  coast. 


Philadelphia,  which,  as  the  first  city  in  historic 
renown,  the  first  in  population,  and  the  temporary 
national  abode,  wore  the  triple  crown  of  the  United 
States,  fulfilled  her  mission  with  a  Quaker-like  simplic 
ity  and  quiet  which  somewhat  diminished  the  example 
she  was  setting.  Philanthropic  and  learned  societies 
here  existed,  commerce  flourished,  colleges  and  hospi 
tals  stood  on  old  endowments,  and  yet  an  atmosphere 
of  serenity,  not  to  say  of  dulness,  enveloped  the  public 
work  of  the  place.  A  want  of  homogeneousness  in  the 
population,  and  religious  differences  dating  back  to 
Colonial  days,  made  an  obstacle  here,  as  in  the  rest  of 
the  State,  to  united  enterprise  and  the  development  of 
a  distinctive  political  character.  Philadelphians  had 
no  such  typical  traits  or  typical  leaders  as  Boston  or 
Charleston ;  there  were  sets  and  cliques  all  living  apart, 
and  the  social  striatures  here  yawned  the  wider,  be 
cause,  as  a  municipality,  it  was  broken  into  fragments. 
The  city  had  few  pretentious  edifices  at  this  time,  and 
those  were  private  ones ;  and  of  the  grandest  of  these 
the  owner  melted  his  fortune  as  he  constructed  it. 

Philadelphia  was,  in  short,  quite  typical  of  its  dwell 
ers,  a  city  of  plain,  sober,  substantial  homes,  whose 
wealthy  merchants,  out  of  good  brick,  with  white  mar 
ble  facings  and  foundations,  made  themselves  dwell 
ings,  with  ample  dormers  and  doorways,  easy  stair 
cases,  and  open  chimneys,  comfortable,  but  severely 
chaste.  On  warm  summer  evenings  their  living  con 
tents,  like  a  Front  Street  merchant's  bales  and  boxes, 
would  pour  out,  upon  the  clean  steps,  porches,  and  side- 


46  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

walks,  but  wooden  shutters  at  most  other  times  ex 
cluded  the  public  gaze  as  from  the  riches  of  a  safe-vault. 
The  gregarious  desire  was  usually  kept  within  decorous 
bounds,  and,  as  scarcely  a  mechanic  could  live  con 
tented  here  without  being  a  freeholder,  the  poor  man's 
desire  was  often  gratified  by  the  purchase  of  a  vacant 
lot  in  some  new  street,  where  he  might  put  up  a  small 
building  fifty  feet  back  from  the  surveyors  line,  there 
to  live  until  his  means  should  enable  him  to  join  a  good 
house  to  the  front  and  turn  his  first  habitation  into  a 
kitchen  ell.  The  streets  had  no  curbstones  as  yet,  but 
pavements  were  dotted  by  posts  to  mark  the  boundaries. 
Though  a  Schuylkill  aqueduct  was  lately  projected, 
pumps  supplied  water  for  drinking,  and  rain-casks 
whatever  might  be  needful  for  washing  the  clothes. 
Spring  Garden  was  a  favorite  place  for  flying  kites; 
State  House  Square,  with  its  beautiful  elms,  the  fash 
ionable  promenade.  The  old  jail  and  whipping-post 
exchanged  knowing  glances  at  the  corner  of  Third  and 
High  streets.  Philadelphia's  system  of  streets,  run 
ning  at  right  angles,  made  the  city  a  safe  one  to  find 
one's  way  in.  Trees  were  set  out  at  regular  intervals, 
and  the  nightly  chorus  of  toads  and  bullfrogs,  broken, 
possibly,  by  the  plaintive  note  of  a  whip-poor-will, 
reminded  every  Londoner  that  he  was  far  from  home. 
For  miles  from  the  city,  on  the  Pennsylvania  side,  there 
was  an  open  prospect,  since  the  king's  troops,  at  the 
period  of  occupation,  had,  when  distressed  for  fuel,  cut 
down  many  hundred  acres  of  orchards;  but  the  oppo 
site  shore  of  New  Jersey  was  a  forest. 

At  this  period  epidemic  disorders  were  prevalent  in 
northern  sea-coast  towns  to  an  extent  unknown  in  the 
nineteenth  century  under  our  modern  system  of  sani 
tary  precautions  and  the  advance  of  medical  science. 


YELLOW   FEVER  47 

Small-pox  broke  out  in  Boston  with  such  virulence  in 
the  latter  part  of  1792  that  a  town  meeting  was  called 
to  devise  measures  for  checking  the  contagion,  and 
Governor  Hancock  thought  it  prudent  to  convene  the 
next  legislature  at  Concord.  A  scourge  far  more  ter 
rible  and  less  skilfully  resisted  afflicted  Philadelphia 
a  year  later ;  a  strange  and  fatal  disease,  proving  to  be 
the  yellow  fever,  which  was  probably  brought  over  in 
early  summer  by  some  uninspected  vessel  from  the 
West  Indies.  At  a  lodging-house  on  Water  Street,  in 
July,  the  first  victims  were  attacked,  and  from  this 
quarter  of  the  city  the  contagion  spread  regularly  along, 
checked  by  an  occasional  empty  block  of  houses,  until 
in  the  latter  part  of  August  the  whole  population  was 
in  a  panic.  Mayor  Clarkson,  on  the  22d  of  August, 
ordered  the  streets  cleaned  and  filth  removed,  and  by 
the  26th  an  address  of  the  Philadelphia  physicians  was 
published,  warning  the  citizens  against  the  danger  of 
holding  intercourse  with  infected  persons.  The  toll 
ing  of  bells  at  funerals  was  stopped,  and  all  were 
advised  to  avoid  fatigue,  dress  warmly,  and  preserve 
habits  of  temperance.  But  medical  men  understood 
little  how  to  cope  with  this  terrible  disorder.  Stopping 
the  practice  of  kindling  bonfires,  which  some  had 
hitherto  thought  a  good  preventive  of  the  disease,  they 
substituted  that  of  firing  guns  for  clearing  the  air; 
under  the  delusion  apparently  that  the  smell  of  gun 
powder  was  beneficial,  but  without  sufficiently  reflect 
ing  that  this  jarring  of  people's  nerves  prostrated  them 
the  more  readily.  So,  too,  it  was  only  after  fatal 
experiments  with  salt  purges,  bark,  wine,  and  lauda 
num,  that  Dr.  Rush  found,  as  he  declared,  in  calomel 
and  jalap  a  happy  remedy;  and  thereupon  so  instant 
became  the  demand  for  these  new  specifics,  that  many 


48  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

fell  victims  to  doses  of  the  dangerous  components  not 
properly  apportioned.  Vinegar  and  camphor,  and 
pieces  of  tarred  rope  were  widely  used  and  recom 
mended  by  way  of  preventives. 

The  usual  course  of  the  disease  was  this :  Chilly  fits 
first  warned  one  of  his  danger,  next  a  hot  skin;  he  felt 
pains  all  over  the  back,  and  became  costive;  he  had 
soreness  at  the  stomach,  accompanied  by  violent  retch 
ings  without  any  discharge.  If  these  symptoms  slowly 
abated  he  recovered,  but  if  they  suddenly  ceased  it 
was  a  sign  of  danger.  In  the  latter  event  the  whites  of 
the  eyes  would  become  saffron-colored,  blood  issued 
from  the  mouth  and  nose,  and  vomiting  ensued  of  a 
dark  substance  resembling  coffee-grounds.  The  vic 
tim's  skin  now  assumed  in  spots  that  yellowish-purple 
from  which  the  name  of  the  fever  was  derived.  He 
felt  sleepy,  and  would  lie  down  wherever  he  happened 
to  be;  delirium  seized  him  soon  after,  and  sometimes 
within  a  few  hours  after  the  first  attack,  though  more 
commonly  in  the  course  of  from  five  to  eight  days,  he 
died.  Even  where  he  recovered  from  the  black  vomit 
spell  there  was  danger  that  a  fatal  haemorrhage  would 
set  in.  The  disease  was  most  successfully  combated 
by  breaking  up  the  first  costiveness.  One  in  good 
health  would  catch  the  infection  from  the  breath  or  the 
touch  of  a  tainted  person ;  and  even  a  trunk  of  clothing 
was  known  to  communicate  the  disorder. 

About  August  25  the  inhabitants  began  to  flee  as 
from  death  on  the  pale  horse.  Coaches,  carriages,  and 
drays,  in  long  processions,  bore  human  beings,  with 
their  baggage  and  household  goods,  to  a  prudent  dis 
tance  from  the  city  of  pestilence.  Those  who  remained 
in  Philadelphia  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses,  ven- 


YELLOW    FEVER  49 

turing  out  as  little  as  possible,  and  friends  passed  one 
another  with  only  a  cold  look  of  recognition ;  easy  con 
versation  at  the  street  corner  was  suspended,  for  each 
distrusted  his  neighbor.  While  the  epidemic  lasted 
17,000  left  town.  An  approaching  hearse  was  the  sig 
nal  for  closing  every  door  and  window,  and  all  who 
wore  the  habiliments  of  mourning,  even  heart-broken 
orphans  and  widows,  were  shunned  as  though  branded 
murderers.  The  suffering  was  intensified  among  the 
poor  and  bereaved  by  reason  of  the  utter  stagnation  of 
business,  whereby  thousands  were  thrown  out  of  em 
ployment.  Meantime  the  undertaker,  the  busiest  of 
men,  with  his  energies  taxed  to  the  utmost,  did  most  of 
the  doleful  business  of  interment  by  night,  and,  con 
tracting  to  furnish  coffins  by  the  quantity  in  his  whole 
sale  procedure,  that  which  he  designed  for  one  member 
of  a  family  would  serve  not  unfrequently  for  another, 
while  the  intended  occupant  recovered.  The  remains 
of  respected  citizens,  in  this  period  of  gloom,  no  matter 
what  the  cause  of  death,  were  hurried  to  the  grave  on 
a  pair  of  shafts,  drawn  by  a  single  horse,  with  some 
solitary  negro  for  the  driver ;  they  were  buried  without 
funeral  rites,  not  a  member  of  the  family  nor  a  family 
friend  being  present  to  drop  a  last  tear  at  the  grave. 
It  was  not  strange  if  amid  all  this  confusion  mistakes 
occurred,  or  that  a  sick  man  was  sometimes  boxed  up 
before  the  breath  had  left  his  body.  The  public  offices 
were  temporarily  removed  from  the  mourning  city. 
The  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  met  at  the 
State  House  in  the  midst  of  the  panic,  and  then  hastily 
adjourned.  Officials,  even  the  municipal  ones  whose 
duty  it  was  to  provide  for  averting  this  contagion, 
slipped  away  under  various  pretexts,  shifting  upon 


50  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

those  who  remained  a  tremendous  burden,  without 
means  adequate  for  sustaining  it.  The  almshouse  hav 
ing  been  closed  upon  infected  occupants,  a  vacant  circus 
on  Market  Street  was  taken  by  the  authorities,  where 
victims  died  of  sheer  exposure  to  the  damp  air,  and 
one  corpse  actually  putrefied  before  a  servant, — and 
she  a  female,  who  fortunately  suffered  nothing  in 
consequence, — could  be  found  hardy  enough  to  remove 
it ;  the  neighbors  meantime  threatening  to  set  the  build 
ing  on  fire  unless  the  hospital  quarters  were  removed 
speedily  to  a  more  distant  site. 

While  the  fear  of  approaching  death  laid  bare  the 
selfishness  and  meanness  of  the  many,  it  showed  that 
there  were  brave  citizens  who  dared  to  expose  their 
own  lives  in  order  to  assuage  the  general  suffering. 
One  of  these  was  Mayor  Clarkson,  whose  conduct 
adorns  with  cisatlantic  lustre  a  name  which  philan 
thropy  must  ever  claim  for  her  own ;  another,  Stephen 
Girard,  Philadelphia's  renowned  benefactor  of  later 
years,  who,  with  Peter  Helm,  assumed  in  September 
the  direction  of  the  new  Lazaretto  Hospital  at  Bush 
Hill,  an  institution  which,  filthily  kept  and  poorly 
served,  had  previously  acquired  the  repute  of  a  human 
slaughter-house.  Meetings  of  patriotic  citizens,  pre 
sided  over  by  the  mayor,  provided  temporary  funds, 
and  moneyed  men  seconded  the  efforts  made  by  their 
more  prominent  brethren  for  organizing  resistance  to 
the  dread  destroyer. 

Nature  proved  the  only  skilful  physician  for  her  own 
distemper  in  this  case.  With  the  first  frosts  of  early 
November  the  yellow  fever  ceased,  and  the  city  once 
more  became  inhabited  and  habitable.  During  the  sea 
son  of  the  epidemic,  from  August  to  November  9,  the 
number  of  city  interments  was  4,044,  and  it  is  esti- 


FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  51 

mated  that  out  of  the  entire  population  which  inhab 
ited  Philadelphia  while  the  fever  prevailed,  more  than 
20  per  cent,  perished. 


From  the  time  of  Washington's  second  inaugura 
tion,  or,  perhaps,  from  the  opening  of  the  same  cal 
endar  year,  dates  the  development  of  a  new  impulse  to 
political  divisions  in  America.  The  party  cleavage  was 
essentially  as  before,  but,  instead  of  Hamilton's  finan 
cial  policy,  the  predominant  issue  now  became,  through 
the  influence  of  gathering  events,  that  predilection 
already  strong  as  between  the  two  great  contending 
powers  of  Europe,  Great  Britain  and  France,  which 
\vas  before  subordinated.  Those  countries,  grappling 
as  in  a  death-struggle,  sought  to  embroil  the  United 
States,  each  on  her  own  side,  by  exerting  a  direct  influ 
ence  upon  the  policy  which  our  American  people  claimed 
so  nearly  as  their  own  constitutional  right  to  control. 
Nor  can  it  be  said  with  truth  that  a  genuine  neutrality, 
with  reference  to  European  politics,  prevailed  in  this 
country  from  1793  until  after  the  war  of  1812,  a  war 
which  accomplished  the  final  divorcement  of  the  two 
continents. 

Before  the  recall  of  Genet  had  been  determined 
upon,  Washington  held  in  his  hands  the  proffered 
resignations  of  his  two  chief  secretaries.  His  peace  of 
mind,  and  the  harmony  of  the  administration  councils, 
required  that  one  or  both  should  be  promptly  accepted. 
Jefferson  had  proposed  resigning  in  September,  but  the 
President  induced  him  to  remain  until  the  end  of  the 
year,  when  Congress  would  be  assembled.  It  was 
Hamilton's  wish,  however,  that  his  own  retirement 
should  take  effect  not  sooner  than  the  close  of  the  com- 


52  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ing  session;  his  department  plans  were  to  be  brought 
forward  in  Congress,  and  he  wished  an  opportunity 
for  resuming  that  investigation  into  his  official  conduct 
which  neither  he  nor  the  President  thought  concluded. 


No  rational  interpretation  of  our  new  treaty  with 
Great  Britain  can  leave  a  doubt  in  candid 
june-juiy.  mm(js  that  this  government,  having  plain 
grievances  against  King  George,  yielded  all  the  favors 
in  her  power  to  bestow  for  the  sake  of  getting  these 
grievances  redressed  for  the  first  time,  and  only  just 
far  enough  to  obviate  the  necessity  of  immediate  war. 
Jay,  the  representative  of  the  aggrieved  country, 
though  honorable  and  patriotic,  had  always  been  a 
timid  negotiator  on  America's  behalf,  and  on  this  mis 
sion  he  was  so  painfully  conscious  that  a  dangerous 
contest  of  arms  would  follow  his  failure  to  make  terms 
with  the  aggressor,  that  he  most  likely  encouraged 
the  less  scrupulous  statesman  who  treated  with  him,  to 
turn  the  opportunity  to  England's  best  account,  by 
obtaining  all  the  commercial  advantages  for  the  Euro 
pean  struggle  she  wished  for  without  undergoing  the 
humiliation  of  asking  for  them ;  and  paring  the  claws 
of  a  neutral  wrho  had  angrily  threatened  to  use  them, 
while  persuading  America  that  the  British  lion  was 
submitting  to  that  operation.  While  it  is  probable  that 
Jay  could  not  have  gained  more  for  his  country,  it  is 
certain  he  might  have  surrendered  less,  and  so  given  an 
equally  pacific  exit  to  his  mission. 

The  secret  of  the  Jay  treaty  had  been  profoundly 
kept  by  all  admitted  into  it,  even  beyond  the  adjourn 
ment  of  the  Senate.  But  outside  curiosity  was  intense  ; 
nor  can  it  be  thought  strange,  so  strong  was  the  sense 


THE  JAY  TREATY  53 

of  injustice  on  our  part,  if  a  too  sanguine  public  expec 
tation  framed  an  imaginary  treaty,  which  yielded  all 
the  commercial  rights  America  had  asked  for,  and  made 
ample  reparation  for  every  injury.  Washington,  im 
pressed  with  the  importance  of  preventing  a  war,  which 
the  rejection  of  these  negotiations  rendered  likely,  had 
intended  to  ratify  the  treaty  apparently,  should  the 
Senate  so  advise,  but  he  was  now  embarrassed  by  its 
reservation  of  the  West  India  clause,  which  raised 
some  technical  questions  concerning  the  constitutional 
"advice  and  consent"  required  of  that  body.  And  a 
second  perplexity  had  arisen,  far  more  serious;  for 
during  the  Senate  session  came  intelligence  from  abroad 
that,  profiting  by  the  present  scarcity  of  provisions  in 
France,  whither  nearly  all  our  last  year's  grain  harvest 
was  destined,  the  British  ministry  had  renewed  their 
former  offensive  order  for  seizing  provision  vessels,  so 
that  immediate  ratification  on  his  part  might  be  inter 
preted  into  a  virtual  surrender  of  the  American  view 
held,  not  without  strong  support  from  international 
jurists,  on  a  delicate  issue  which  the  treaty  itself  had 
not  assumed  to  decide.  Incorrect  and  imperfect  ver 
sions  of  the  English  negotiation  had  recently  appeared 
in  our  newspapers,  and  just  as  Washington  was  on  the 
point  of  allowing  to  the  public  an  inspection  of  the 
authentic  document,  Bache's  paper  came  out  with  a  true 
copy  of  the  treaty  in  full. 

The  news  swept  the  country  like  wildfire.  Repub- 
lished  in  all  the  other  leading  newspapers  of  the  Union, 
the  treaty  made  a  profound  popular  impression,  and 
that  mostly  of  disappointment  and  disfavor.  A  town 
meeting  in  Boston,  in  July,  which  some  of  the  most 
eminent  merchants  of  the  place  attended,  denounced 
the  treaty  as  unworthy  of  ratification,  and  agreed  to 


54  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

memorialize  the  President  to  that  effect.  In  New  York 
a  mass  gathering  was  next  called  for  a  similar  purpose, 
which  Hamilton  and  his  friends  tried  unwisely  to  cap 
ture  in  the  Anglican  interest.  Hamilton  was  stoned 
while  speaking  in  aid  of  the  treaty,  and  after  his  sym 
pathizers  had  been  compelled  to  withdraw,  resolutions 
of  opposition,  under  the  lead  of  the  Livingston  family, 
were  unanimously  passed.  Public  meetings  followed 
at  Philadelphia  and  Charleston  with  the  like  object  of 
remonstrance,  McKean,  Muhlenberg,  and  Dallas  tak 
ing  a  prominent  part  in  the  former,  and  John  Rutledge 
and  Gadsden  in  the  latter.  Most  of  these  demonstra 
tions  had  riotous  accompaniments,  such  as  burning  the 
treaty  before  the  British  minister's  house,  trailing  the 
British  flag,  and  destroying  Jay  in  effigy. 

Amid  the  general  execration,  Jay  suffered  the  popu 
lar  penalty,  usual  with  American  statesmen  on  such 
occasions,  of  having  his  motives  foully  traduced.  At 
Philadelphia  a  transparency  was  borne  in  procession, 
with  a  figure  of  the  Chief  Justice  in  his  long  robe ;  his 
right  hand  held  a  balance,  one  scale  of  which,  inscribed 
"American  liberty  and  independence"  kicked  the  beam, 
while  "British  gold"  bore  down  the  other.  His  left 
hand  extended  the  treaty  scroll  towards  a  group  of 
Senators.  From  his  mouth  proceeded  the  words, 
"Come  up  to  my  price,  and  I  will  sell  you  my  country." 
This  effigy  was  burned  at  Kensington. 


While  the  fate  of  this  nation  to  so  many  hung  appar- 

I7<?6         ently  by  the  same  thread  with  the  treaty, 

April.       Fisher  Ames  rose  to  his  feet  to  deliver  the 

most  eloquent  speech  ever  heard  in  Congress  by  his 

generation.     Failing  health  had  kept  one  of  the  most 


SPEECH   OF  AMES  55 

experienced  debaters  of  the  House  from  mingling 
hitherto  in  the  discussion ;  a  misfortune  which  was  felt 
all  the  more  keenly  as  Tracy,  who  had  been  put  for 
ward  to  respond  to  the  calm  and  reassuring  speech  of 
Gallatin,  showed  too  much  asperity  to  make  a  strong 
counter-impression,  and  marred  the  effect  of  his  argu 
ment  by  ill-natured  flings  at  Gallatin's  foreign  nativity. 
Ames,  against  his  physician's  advice,  determined  to 
speak,  and  the  galleries  filled  to  hear  him.  He  arose 
pale  and  feeble,  hardly  able  to  stand,  but  soon  warmed 
with  the  subject  and  the  opportunity.  Touching  with 
delicacy  upon  French  excesses  and  the  first  commotion 
\vhich  the  treaty  had  excited,  the  movements  of  passion, 
which  are  quicker  than  those  of  the  understanding, 
deprecating  all  foreign  partisanship,  and  making  no 
attempt  to  vaunt  unduly  the  merits  of  the  treaty  as 
other  Federalists  had  done,  he  pressed  home  with 
earnestness  and  force  the  strongest  points  in  favor  of 
passing  the  present  appropriation.  These  points  were, 
the  inconsistency  of  letting  negotiation  operate  a  full 
treaty  ratified  in  every  particular,  and  then  claiming  the 
right  to  defeat  its  execution  afterwards ;  the  wound  to 
the  public  honor  of  this  nation  should  the  public  faith 
be  violated;  the  certainty  of  both  foreign  war  and 
anarchy,  as  he  viewed  it,  if  the  proposed  treaty  should 
fail  in  this  manner.  It  was  in  depicting  the  horrors 
which,  to  his  mind,  depressed  under  the  influence  of  a 
deep-seated  malady,  were  sure  to  follow  so  dangerous 
a  course,  that  Ames's  eloquence  took  its  loftiest  flight, 
moving  his  hearers  to  tears.  He  pictured  the  new  fron 
tier  war  which  would  be  provoked  by  Britain's  con 
tinued  retention  of  the  posts — the  blaze  of  the  log 
houses,  the  war-whoop  of  the  Indians,  the  bound  vic 
tims,  all  the  terrors  of  1794  repeated.  Beckoning  to 


56  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

his  hearers  like  the  spectre  of  some  disembodied  hero 
who  awaits  the  cock-crow  before  returning  to  the  shades 
of  an  invisible  world,  Ames  held  his  long  familiar 
associates  spellbound  by  a  vivid  imagery  of  these 
dreadful  scenes  and  a  pathos  of  expression  worthy  of 
Jonathan  Edwards.  "Even  the  minutes  I  have  spent 
in  expostulation,"  were  his  closing  solemn  words,  "have 
their  value,  because  they  protract  the  crisis  and  the  short 
period  in  which  alone  we  may  resolve  to  escape  it.  Yet 
I  have,  perhaps,  as  little  personal  interest  in  the  event  as 
any  one  here.  There  is,  I  believe,  no  member  who  will 
not  think  his  chance  to  be  a  witness  of  the  consequences 
greater  than  mine.  If,  however,  the  vote  should  pass 
to  reject,  and  a  spirit  should  rise,  as  it  will,  with  the 
public  disorders  to  make  confusion  worse  confounded, 
even  I,  slender  and  almost  broken  as  my  hold  on  life 
is,  may  outlive  the  government  and  constitution  of  my 
country." 

This  speech,  whose  pathetic  utterances  were  wrung 
from  a  suffering  heart,  carried  the  day,  not  without 
compassion  for  the  sufferer,  for  it  was  blind  Milton 
reciting  "Paradise  Lost."  There  was  scarcely  a  dry 
eye  in  the  House.  Judge  Iredell  and  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent  sat  sobbing  in  the  gallery  together,  and  ejacu 
lating:  "My  God!  how  great  he  is!"  "Noble!"  An 
adjournment  was  carried;  but  Ames's  speech  was  un 
answered,  its  impression  lasted,  and  the  vote  taken  the 
next  day  stood  49  to  49  on  the  question  of  appropria 
tion.  Dayton  had  come  over,  and  others  of  the  hesi 
tant.  Even  Muhlenberg,  chairman  of  the  Committee 
of  the  Whole,  in  which  this  discussion  took  place,  now 
gave  his  casting  vote  in  favor  of  the  appropriation,  and 
the  resolution  on  its  final  passage  was  carried  through 
the  House  by  51  to  48.  There  were  only  four  votes 


WASHINGTON'S   FAREWELL          57 

cast  against  it  from  New  England,  and  only  four  in 
favor  of  it  from  the  South,  but  the  members  from  the 
Middle  States  had  decided  the  contest  by  yielding  to 
eloquence  and  an  immense  external  pressure  from  their 
constituencies. 


In  September,  1796,  Washington  put  forth  a  fare 
well  address,  which  he  had  long  contemplated  issuing, 
and  upon  which,  with  the  aid  of  others,  he  had  labored 
carefully.  In  words  of  solemn  benediction  and  free 
from  all  strain  of  cant  or  partisanship,  this  address 
inculcated  political  maxims  of  whose  force  experience 
had  convinced  him,  and  warned  the  people  against  the 
dangers  of  geographical  parties,  of  the  spirit  of  fac 
tion  and  the  spirit  of  encroachment  upon  authority. 
The  most  apt  and  forcible  passage,  perhaps,  in  this 
famous  and  familiar  state  paper,  and  that  which  sank 
deepest,  admonished  his  countrymen  against  foreign 
wiles  and  American  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  Eu 
rope.  The  idea  of  detaching  this  continent  wholly  and 
forever  from  the  cabinet  ambitions  and  calculations  of 
the  Old  World  over  the  balance  of  power  was  not  as 
yet  well  comprehended  by  his  fellow-citizens,  and  here 
Washington's  valedictory  left  an  abiding  impression 
upon  the  international  policy  of  the  United  States. 

The  well-chosen  words  in  which  America's  vener 
ated  captain  bade  farewell  to  public  station  hushed  fac 
tion  into  silence ;  and,  the  last  rapids  past,  his  bark  went 
fitly  down  to  a  rich  sunset  through  smooth  waters, 
applauding  multitudes  crowding  the  banks,  and  par 
ties  emulating  in  respect,  as  though  to  borrow  glory 
from  his  departing  radiance.  Addresses  from  public 
and  private  bodies  reached  Washington  through  the 


58  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

winter  from  all  quarters  of  the  Union,  couched  in  terms 
of  loyal  respect  and  affection.  The  legislatures  of  one 
State  after  another  responded  heartily  to  the  farewell 
address,  several  ordering  it  to  be  entered  at  length  upon 
their  journals;  among  the  rest  that  of  Virginia,  though 
reserved  as  to  the  wisdom  of  his  late  policy,  now  unani 
mously  expressed  respect  for  the  President's  person, 
a  high  sense  of  his  exalted  services,  and  regret  for  his 
approaching  retirement. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ADMINISTRATION    OF   JOHN    ADAMS. 

§  I.  Period  of  Fifth  Congress.     March  4,   1797-March  3,  1799. — 
§  II.  Period  of  Sixth  Congress.    March  4,  1799-March  3,  1801. 

JOHN  ADAMS  was  inaugurated  President  of  the 
United  States  in  the  Representatives'  chamber  of 
the  Congress  Hall  at  Philadelphia.  There  was  an 
immense  crowd  in  attendance,  many  ladies  occu 
pying  the  seats  of  members,  and  the  Senators,  the  jus 
tices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  cabinet  officers,  and  the 
Spanish  minister  sat  in  distinguished  array.  Those 
entitled  to  places  of  special  honor  were  announced  by 
the  doorkeeper  as  they  entered  from  behind  and  ap 
proached  the  Speaker's  desk.  Washington,  whose 
coach  and  four  had  stopped  opposite  the  door  of  Inde 
pendence  Hall,  walked  through  an  avenue  which  the 
crowd  had  formed,  and  entered  the  Federal  building 
cheered  lustily.  The  inside  applause,  which  was  deaf 
ening,  commenced  the  moment  he  entered  the  Federal 
hall  as  his  name  was  called,  and  walked  less  deliber 
ately  than  usual  to  take  the  seat  assigned  him  on  the 
right  of  the  Speaker's  chair;  for  it  was  remarked  that 
he  seemed  hardly  self-possessed  and  calm,  but  hurried 
as  though  desirous  of  escaping  greater  marks  of  respect 
than  were  due  to  a  private  citizen.  Jefferson,  who  had 
taken  his  official  oath  as  Vice-President  at  1 1  o'clock, 
and  assumed  his  new  functions  over  the  Senate  in  an 


60  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 


easy  and  rather  trifling  manner,  next  entered,  and,  sep 
arately  announced  and  applauded,  proceeded  to  occupy 
the  corresponding  seat  on  the  left.  He  appeared  tall, 
straight,  good-tempered  rather  than  imposing,  his  foxy 
hair  very  slightly  powdered.  Last  was  called  the  name 
of  the  chief  man  of  the  occasion,  the  new  President,  and 
John  Adams  came  slowly  down  the  aisle,  dressed  in  a 
light-drab  suit,  with  his  hair  powdered  and  in  a  bag. 
He  bowed  on  each  side  in  response  to  the  plaudits  which 
greeted  him  as  he  advanced,  and  mounting  the  plat 
form  took  his  seat  in  the  Speaker's  chair.  Speaker 
Dayton  sat  in  the  clerk's  seat  below.  At  high  noon 
two  brass  fieldpieces  stationed  in  Potter's  Field  fired  a 
salute,  and  Adams  rose,  bowed  to  different  sides  of  the 
room,  and  delivered  his  inaugural  address. 

This  address,  one  of  the  very  best  of  the  kind,  was 
a  strong,  fearless,  incisive  production,  quite  character 
istic  of  the  author,  evincing  an  admirable  comprehen 
sion  of  those  general  maxims  which  ought  to  serve  for 
the  general  guidance  of  an  American  administration, 
and  at  the  same  time  vindicating  his  own  inflexible 
attachment  to  free  government  and  the  constitution. 
Here,  as  upon  the  recent  occasion  of  taking  his  leave 
of  the  Senate,  he  made  an  effort  to  dispel  the  old 
calumny  that  he  was  one  who  preferred  a  monarchy, 
and  he  meant  to  establish  his  title  to  public  confidence 
as  one  who  could  well  afford  to  stand  upon  a  life-long 
record  of  patriotic  service.  A  disposition  to  delicate 
dealing  with  State  governments  was  avowed  on  his 
part;  an  impartial  regard  of  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  whole  Union,  without  sectional  preferences;  a 
resolution  to  do  justice  by  all  nations  while  avoiding 
the  pestilence  of  foreign  influence;  a  desire  to  be  just 


INAUGURATION  OF  ADAMS         61 

and  humane  in  internal  concerns,  and  to  improve  agri 
culture,  manufactures,  and  commerce;  and,  finally,  a 
veneration  for  the  Christian  religion.  All  these  ideas 
were  conceived  and  expressed  in  a  comprehensive  and 
catholic  spirit. 

In  two  points  John  Adams  strained  his  emotions  in 
order  to  make  a  good  impression  on  his  audience. 
Concerning  the  French  nation  he  expressed  a  personal 
esteem  on  his  part,  formed  in  a  residence  of  seven  years 
chiefly  among  them,  besides  "a  sincere  desire  to  pre 
serve  the  friendship  which  has  been  so  much  for  the 
honor  and  interest  of  both  nations."  And  with  refer 
ence  to  his  predecessor  he  turned,  bowing  towards  the 
close,  to  pay  him  a  graceful  and  laudatory  tribute, 
which  was  greeted  with  acclamation,  all  the  audience 
standing.  These  were  the  two  themes  uppermost  in 
men's  minds  on  this  occasion. 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  speech  the  oath  of  office  was 
administered  by  Ellsworth,  the  Chief  Justice,  Adams 
making  his  responses  with  fervor ;  after  which  the  new 
President  retired.  An  amusing  strife  of  courtesy  now 
ensued  between  Jefferson  and  Washington ;  the  former 
attempting  in  vain  to  make  the  ex-President  take  prece 
dence  ;  and  as  the  Vice-President  finally  walked  up  the 
aisle  with  Washington  behind  him,  a  loud  shout  went 
up;  and  then  the  audience  jostled  and  rushed  to  the 
main  entrance  to  get  a  last  look  at  their  chief  of  men. 

Acccompanied  by  Pickering,  Washington  walked  to 
the  hotel  where  his  successor  now  lodged,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  paying  his  personal  respects,  a  crowd  pressing 
after.  The  door  was  closed,  but  it  presently  opened 
again,  and  Washington  stood  there  with  uncovered 
head;  he  bowed  three  times  and  slowly  retired,  and 


62  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

then  the  crowd  gradually  dispersed,  most  of  them  to 
behold  him  no  more. 


Three  measures,  all  born  of  a  single  session, — the 
new  Naturalization  Act,  the  Alien  Acts,  and  the  Sedi 
tion  Act, — for  which  the  Federalist  leaders 
were  solely  responsible,  apart  from  their  con 
stituencies,  weighted  their  party  and  the  administration 
with  all  the  odium  of  a  wilful  attempt  to  crush  out 
political  opponents  rather  than  win  them,  and  to 
weed  the  foreign-born  out  of  the  Union.  The  spirit 
of  American  institutions,  and  those  safeguards  which 
our  constitution  had  diligently  provided,  forbade  the 
extensive  execution  of  such  laws  in  the  sense  desired ; 
while  in  the  end  that  sullen  obstinacy  with  which  the 
authors  clung  to  their  miserable  experiment,  regard 
less  of  the  voice  of  popular  warning,  overwhelmed  Fed 
eralism  presently  with  such  utter  disaster  that  it  sank 
to  rise  no  more. 

These  acts  were  not  passed  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce 
and  bloody  revolution  nor  while  a  foreign  war  was 
raging,  for  then  the  violence,  temporary  only,  and  vin 
dicated  or  else  atoned  afterwards,  might  have  been  for 
given.  Indeed,  they  were  projected,  and  that  too  in 
their  very  worst  shape,  before  any  tidings  of  the  French 
mission  beyond  the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches  had  reached  this 
country,  and  when  it  was  not  certain  that  our  embassy 
would  fail ;  in  a  season,  doubtless,  of  great  public  ex 
citement,  but  where  that  excitement  was  directed  to 
repelling  in  effect  the  expected  invaders  who  had  not 
approached  these  shores  and  never  would.  The  only 
ground  on  which  the  Federalists  sought  openly  to  jus 
tify  their  present  extreme  measures  was  the  suppres 
sion  of  all  combinations  between  American  Democrats 


ALIEN  AND   SEDITION  ACTS         63 

and  the  French  army  against  our  aristocrats  and  the 
ruling  class;  combinations  which  Harper  and  others 
affirmed  were  here,  but  for  whose  existence  not  the 
slightest  proof  ever  appeared  beyond,  possibly,  that 
afforded  by  a  rare  admission  of  communications  from 
foreign  official  sources  into  the  columns  of  some  party 
newspapers;  while  the  evidence  is  positive  that  our 
most  influential  Republicans,  like  Jefferson,  Madison, 
and  Gallatin,  knew  nothing  whatever  of  French  rela 
tions  at  this  period,  outside  the  usual  channels  which 
our  Executive  controlled.  That,  besides  this  unfounded 
fear,  operated  the  desire  of  ultra  Federalists  to  take 
revenge  upon  those  presses  which  had  assailed  the  Brit 
ish  treaty  and  other  pet  measures  and  abused  Federal 
leaders,  and  the  determination  to  entrench  themselves 
in  authority  by  forcibly  disbanding  an  opposition  party 
which  had  attracted  a  readier  support  at  the  polls  from 
the  oppressed  of  other  countries,  like  the  Irish,  Scotch, 
and  French  immigrants,  no  candid  writer  can  at  this 
day  question.  In  order  to  accomplish  their  main  pur 
pose,  the  Federalists  in  the  Alien  Acts,  as  though  the 
constitution  were  framed  to  protect  natives  alone,  de 
liberately  set  aside  trial  by  jury,  and  subjected  those 
whom  this  government  had  but  recently  encouraged  to 
seek  an  asylum  and  speedy  citizenship  to  the  arbitrary 
disposal,  alien  friends  and  alien  enemies  alike,  of  the 
chief  Executive;  and  in  the  Sedition  Act,  distrusting 
the  political  bias  or  tenderer  forbearance  of  State  courts 
and  prosecutors,  they  committed  the  accusation  and 
sentence  to  Federal  officers  and  tribunals, — -in  either 
case  violating  the  spirit  of  our  fundamental  ordinance 
in  order  to  insure  a  direction  of  the  machinery  favor 
able  to  their  party  ends. 

To  this  persecuting  policy,  in  its  full  significance, 


64  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

the  present  Federalist  leaders,  with  the  exception  of 
their  greatest,  Hamilton  (himself  an  alien-born,  and  of 
a  mind  too  comprehensive  in  its  grasp  not  to  take  in 
dangers  which  escaped  the  notice  of  the  others),  now 
strongly  committed  themselves.  Adams,  whose  prac 
tice  proved  kinder  here  than  his  theory,  dropped,  in 
some  of  his  more  indiscreet  responses  to  the  patriotic 
addresses,  angry  threats  of  an  authority  to  correct  the 
delusions  which  had  led  so  many  astray.  The  stern 
and  relentless  Secretary  of  State  feared  only  that  the 
measures  as  actually  passed  did  not  go  far  enough. 
Not  a  Federalist  member  of  Congress  had  an  apologetic 
word  to  utter  for  invading  rights  held  hitherto  sacred, 
nor  a  regret  to  express  that  political  censors  and  the 
press  needed  the  shackles. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts 
were  not  so  dangerous,  as  actually  passed,  as  they  ap 
peared  in  the  preliminary  stages.  But  we  are  to  judge 
of  the  political  animus  of  a  party  in  no  slight  degree 
by  what  it  attempts;  and,  as  a  historical  fact,  to  the 
opposition  at  a  late  stage  of  the  very  members  whose 
discomfiture  was  thereby  intended  and  of  the  very 
newspapers  to  be  throttled,  rather  than  to  the  liberal 
inclinations  of  partisans  who  fathered  these  measures, 
we  owe  it  chiefly  that  the  Naturalization,  Alien,  and 
Sedition  Acts  stopped  short  of  a  tyranny,  utterly  de 
testable  ;  so  true  is  it,  as  the  House  showed  by  compari 
son  with  the  Senate,  that  the  salvation  of  a  political 
majority  lies  in  the  constant  need  of  confronting  a  vig 
orous  minority  and  public  opinion. 

In  November  the  legislature  of  Kentucky  made  a 
startling  protest  against  the  constitutional 
ity  of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts,  in  a  series 
of  resolutions  which  John  Breckinridge  introduced, 


KENTUCKY  AND  VIRGINIA          65 

and  which  declared  each  act  to  be  "not  law  but  alto 
gether  void  and  of  no  force."  These  resolutions  passed 
with  but  a  few  dissenting  votes.  A  few  weeks  later  the 
Virginia  legislature,  under  John  Taylor's  lead,  passed 
in  December  resolutions  of  similar  drift  but  more  mod 
erate  expression,  pronouncing  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Acts  "palpable  and  alarming  infractions  of  the  consti 
tution."  The  Kentucky  resolutions  instructed  the  dele 
gates  of  that  State  to  use  their  best  efforts  to  procure  a 
repeal  of  the  obnoxious  acts,  while  those  of  both  Ken 
tucky  and  Virginia  made  a  solemn  appeal  to  the  other 
States,  as  though  for  a  concurrence  of  sentiment,  which 
might  stimulate,  if  need  be,  a  closer  co-operation  here 
after.  These  Kentucky  resolutions  were  drafted  in  a 
bolder  form  by  Jefferson,  while  those  of  Virginia  pro 
ceeded  more  directly  from  Madison's  pen.  Jefferson's 
leading  idea  was  to  resolve  the  obnoxious  acts  uncon 
stitutional  and  void,  and  assuming  a  defiant  attitude 
towards  the  Federal  Union  in  a  corresponding  sense,  to 
push  the  principle  of  resistance  to  Congress,  though 
only  so  far  as  events  might  render  it  prudent  and  de 
sirable. 

In  thus  organizing  a  revolt  of  the  commune  against 
class  tyranny,  against  the  suppression  of  free  speech, 
the  shackling  of  the  press,  and  the  outlawry  of  men 
who  had  sought  these  shores  as  an  asylum  from  oppres 
sion,  Jefferson  calculated  nicely  the  strength  of  the  two 
opposing  forces.  This  was  to  his  mind  a  politic  and 
political  warfare,  requiring  firmness,  but  a  passive  firm 
ness.  Of  his  attachment  to  the  Union,  his  recent  letter 
to  John  Taylor  was  strong  indication.  Virginia  and 
Kentucky,  he  hoped,  would  make  such  a  diversion  of 
opinion  in  the  Middle  States  that  the  Federal  govern 
ment  would  not  dare  coerce ;  and  he  doubtless  compre- 


66  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

bended  well  that  the  blood  stirs  more  to  rouse  the  lion 
of  revolutionary  resistance  than  the  hare  of  tame  pro 
test.  But  in  his  ardor  when  drafting  these  bold  reso 
lutions,  he  struck  into  a  line  of  argument  which  asserted 
a  dangerous  latitude  of  discretion  for  States,  or  rather 
for  State  legislatures,  over  Federal  legislation,  a  latitude 
which  neither  Breckinridge  nor  the  judicious  Madison 
chose  fully  at  this  time  to  approve,  nor  Jefferson  himself 
to  claim  again.  All  the  old  thirteen  States  north  of  the 
Potomac  hastened  to  disavow  the  idea  that  State  legis 
latures  could  at  discretion  revise  and  disapprove  a  sol 
emn  act  of  Congress.  But  the  discussion  thus  elicited 
served  its  main  purpose  in  separating  more  clearly  the 
friends  and  foes  of  the  present  proscriptive  enactments ; 
the  curvature  of  the  one  party  caused  the  other  to  bend 
in  the  opposite  and  more  dangerous  direction;  and 
ardent  Federalists  in  the  State  legislatures  who  now 
proceeded  to  affirm  both  the  constitutionality  and  policy 
of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  vindicated  their  con 
sistency  at  the  expense  of  their  statesmanship.* 


At  whatever  point  the  authors  and  zealous  promoters 
of  the  Sedition  law  and  sedition  prosecutions  meant 

*Madison,  who  survived  the  South  Carolina  troubles  in  1832, 
was  most  strenuous  at  that  date  to  condemn  the  theory  of  nulli 
fication  as  then  propounded  by  Calhoun,  and  to  clear  both  himself 
and  Jefferson,  so  far  as  possible,  from  the  imputation  of  having 
fathered  such  a  heresy,  in  the  above  Kentucky  and  Virginia  reso 
lutions.  It  is  matter  of  record  that  Madison,  by  modifying  the 
ideas  Jefferson  had  furnished  him,  prepared  resolutions  and  an 
address  for  the  Virginia  legislature,  so  adroitly  and  yet  so  forcibly 
worded  as  to  keep  the  State  within  constitutional  bounds,  and  hint 
only  at  forcible  resistance,  while  urging  sister  States  to  concert  in 
a  strictly  legitimate  protest.  The  resolutions  in  Kentucky  pro 
posed  still  more  temperate  action,  though  asserting  bolder  dog 
mas,  Jefferson's  preamble  being  taken  but  not  his  conclusion. 


DEATH   OF  WASHINGTON  67 

that  punishment  for  opposing  government  measures 
directed  by  proper  authority,  and  trying  to  bring  the 
President  into  contempt  or  disrepute,  should  cease,  they 
evidently  did  not  consider  themselves  debarred  from 
thwarting  President  Adams  when  his  executive  course 
in  foreign  affairs  interfered  with  their  own  designs,  nor 
from  combining  to  displace  him  from  power  as  a  vain, 
frantic,  and  obstinate  man,  now  that  he  had  succeeded 
in  thwarting  them.  The  Cabinet  malcontents  stirred  up 
their  friends  to  believe  with  them  that  unless  Adams 
withdrew  his  name  from  the  approaching  canvass  a 
national  defeat  of  the  party  was  inevitable. 

The  first  secret  cabals  of  the  discontented  contem 
plated  bringing  out  Washington  again  for  a  third  term. 
But  the  magnanimous  soul  which  never  could  have 
stooped  to  the  base  uses  of  any  party  faction  for  a 
party  emergency  sped  the  scene  whose  sorest  need  of 
his  service  had  vanished.  Death  sent  a  sud-  ,799. 
den  shaft  to  the  heart  which  calumny  had  so  December  i4. 
long  assailed  in  vain ;  and  scarcely  had  a  new  Congress 
convened  and  organized  before  the  two  Houses  were 
called  upon  to  pay  their  last  public  honors  to  "the  man, 
first  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his 
fellow-citizens." 

It  has  been  the  posthumous  distinction  of  Wash 
ington  to  retain  that  first  place,  and  to  enjoy  the  name 
and  fame  of  patriot  father  in  each  succeeding  lustrum 
of  American  history,  besides  a  world-wide  renown  be 
yond  that  of  all  others  ever  born,  reared,  and  educated 
on  American  soil — a  soil  which  was  the  sole  arena  of 
his  life  achievements.  His  eulogy  was  the  grief  of 
united  millions,  who  had  gradually  become  impressed 
by  the  beauty  of  a  life  devoted  to  their  welfare,  and 
who  learned  at  last  to  realize  that  wherever  and  when- 


68  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ever  party  issues  might  touch  him,  the  ether  Washing 
ton  breathed  was  always  that  where  "eternal  sunshine 
settles."  France  and  Napoleon  paid  tributes  to  his 
memory  not  less  touching  than  Great  Britain.  But 
unlike  the  rising  Corsican,  Washington  stood  securely 
on  his  pedestal  as  one  who  had  subserved  the  cause  of 
liberty  always,  instead  of  bringing  liberty  to  subserve 
his  private  ambition.  For  one  of  the  world's  genuine 
heroes,  his  fame  was  well  bestowed.  Unlike  Epami- 
nondas,  he  left  behind  him  a  unity  of  States,  too  firmly 
compacted  to  perish  with  himself;  nor  did  assassina 
tion  deprive  him  of  the  sweets  of  public  gratitude  as 
it  had  the  great  Orange.  Rewarded  in  the  declining 
years  of  his  life  with  a  popular  confidence  like  that  be 
stowed  in  a  more  primitive  age  and  a  narrower  circle 
upon  Timoleon  of  Syracuse,  Washington  gained  from 
posterity  a  renown  which  in  later  times  has  been  most 
happily  epitomized :  "The  greatest  of  good  men,  and 
the  best  of  great  men." 


To  the  new  Federal  capital,  now  doubly  consecrated 
in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people  by  the  hallowed 

lgoo  name  of  its  deceased  founder,  the  President 
November.  weicomed  Congress  at  its  second  and  final 
session,  congratulating  the  two  Houses  "on  the  pros 
pect  of  a  residence  not  to  be  changed."  The  removal 
of  the  Federal  government  to  this  sequestered  and  un- 
populous  region,  over  which  it  exercised  exclusive 
jurisdiction,  proved  most  timely;  for  had  the  closing 
scenes  of  so  exciting  a  Presidential  contest  been  enacted 
at  Philadelphia,  there  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
serious  riots  and  probably  bloodshed. 

This  was,  indeed,  a  place  for  central  seclusion.    All 


NEW   CAPITAL  CITY  69 

the  way  from  Baltimore  one  rode  hither  through  thick 
woods,  seeing  scarcely  a  house  or  a  human  being.  An 
unfinished  block  on  Capitol  Hill  marked  the  site  of  that 
great  purchase  of  six  thousand  lots  which  had  hastened 
the  insolvency  of  Morris,  Greenleaf,  and  Nicholson; 
their  agreement  with  the  government  to  build  brick 
houses  remaining  unfulfilled.  Scarcely  five  hundred 
inhabitants  had  yet  appeared  in  the  new  city ;  and  they 
were  chiefly  negroes  and  foreign  laborers  needful  on 
the  public  works,  who  dwelt  in  cheap  huts.  Only  the 
north  wing  of  the  splendid  Capitol,  commenced  on  this 
wooded  height,  whose  southeast  corner-stone  Wash 
ington  himself  laid  in  1793,  with  masonic  ceremonies, 
peered  above  the  clustering  oaks.  The  President's 
house,  some  two  miles  to  the  westward,  had  been 
planned  on  a  liberal  scale,  and  was  decently  fit  for  hab 
itation;  but  the  plastering  was  damp,  and  some  of  the 
commonest  conveniences  were  wanting.  No  fencing 
was  yet  visible  in  the  city;  brick-kilns  peeped  out  here 
and  there  like  ant-hills;  nothing,  wrote  Wolcott,  was 
plenty  except  provisions.  So  few  and  so  scattered  were 
the  houses  that  comfortable  quarters  for  the  represen 
tatives  of  the  nation  could  only  be  had  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Georgetown,  whither,  to  the  confusion  of 
L'Enf ant's  plans,  the  gregarious  and  fashionably  in 
clined  must  consequently  have  tended. 

The  excitement  of  the  Presidential  campaign  had 
been  intense.  But  the  electoral  issue  having  reduced 
itself  mainly  into  a  rival  contest  for  capturing  State 
legislatures,  the  immediate  wishes  of  the  people  had 
been  of  secondary  consideration. 

It  was  not  the  national  rivalry  between  Federalists 
and  Republicans,  as  the  event  proved,  which  was  here 
to  jeopardize  the  Presidential  title,  but  that  fatal  clause 


yo  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  the  constitution,  as  it  then  stood,  under  which  each 
elector  cast  his  two  ballots  without  designating  which 
should  be  President  and  which  Vice-President.  While 
their  own  dark  intrigues  for  the  "double  chance"  were 
frustrated  this  fall  beyond  a  peradventure  by  the  pru 
dent  dropping  out  of  a  single  Pinckney  ballot  in  Rhode 
Island,  and  both  their  candidates  were  defeated  more 
over,  the  ultra  Federalists  found  a  new  opportunity 
presented  for  baffling  the  public  wishes  by  an  unex 
pected  tie  which  occurred  between  Jefferson  and  Burr, 
whose  electors  appear  to  have  held  too  faithfully  to 
gether  in  the  double  vote  for  the  immediate  interests  of 
the  party.  This,  of  course,  prevented,  and  for  the  first 
time  in  our  history,  a  constitutional  choice  of  President 
by  electors,  and  devolved  the  duty  upon  a  House  con 
trolled  by  the  political  opponents  of  both  Jefferson  and 
Burr  to  decide  which  of  the  two  they  should  make  the 
Chief  Magistrate. 

The  day  for  the  meeting  of  electoral  colleges  had 
Tgol  been  placed  by  law  at  the  first  Wednesday  of 
February.  December,  and  the  second  Wednesday  of 
February  following  was  the  day  fixed  for  opening  the 
certificates  and  counting  the  votes.  The  two  Houses, 
both  of  them  inconveniently  quartered  in  the  north 
wing  of  the  Capitol,  assembled  on  the  nth  of  February 
in  the  Senate  Chamber  for  the  latter  purpose.  The 
count  of  the  tellers  showed,  as  already  anticipated,  that 
Jefferson  and  Burr  had  each  73  electoral  votes,  Adams 
65,  Pinckney  64,  and  Jay  i.  As  presiding  officer  of 
the  Senate,  the  unwelcome  duty  devolved  upon  Jeffer 
son  of  announcing  that  there  was  a  tie  vote  between 
himself  and  Burr.  Upon  this  announcement  the  House 
returned  to  its  own  chamber,  there  to  continue  in  ses 
sion,  as  that  body  had  already  resolved,  without  pro- 


THE  ELECTORAL  TIE  71 

cceding  to  other  business,  till  a  President  should  be 
chosen. 


The  ill-success  of  the  Presidency  of  John  Adams, 
regarded  from  a  personal  and  party  standpoint, — for 
in  respect  of  the  nation's  interests  it  was  by  no  means  a 
failure, — we  may  trace  in  part  to  the  unfortunate  cir 
cumstances  by  which  Adams  was  surrounded,  and  in 
part  to  faults  inseparable  from  his  headstrong  and  orig 
inal  character.  He  was  unfortunate,  first  of  all,  in  being 
the  immediate  successor  of  a  President  so  transcendent 
in  all  those  qualities  which  mark  the  practical  admin 
istrator  and  command  confidence  as  Washington;  a 
successor,  too,  the  first  of  that  style,  and  committed 
substantially  to  the  same  line  of  policy  and  dependent 
upon  the  same  elements  for  his  active  political  support. 
It  was  a  lengthening  shadow  that  his  more  illustrious 
predecessor  cast  down  nearly  his  whole  oficial  path 
way;  and  for  the  year  which  followed  Washington's 
death — the  last  months  nearly  of  this  present  adminis 
tration — the  public  grief  was  too  great  to  be  assuaged 
or  diverted.  The  new  President  followed  the  old,  there 
fore,  seemingly  at  a  long  distance  for  the  whole  round, 
and  was  forced  to  perform  various  deferential  tasks 
which  only  a  spirit  modest,  venerating,  and  unenvious 
could  have  performed  with  cheerfulness.  Adams  was 
next  unfortunate  in  inheriting  from  that  former  admin 
istration,  admirable  as  it  had  been  in  most  respects,  its 
very  serious  embarrassment  with  France,  which,  com 
plicated  as  it  became  by  Talleyrand's  misconduct,  was 
not  at  length  overcome  without  causing  a  sudden  and 
almost  ludicrous  collapse  of  warlike  enthusiasm  on  the 
part  of  our  people;  while  subjecting  them  to  those  very 


72  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

serious  accompaniments  of  war,  lavish  expenditure, 
burdensome  taxation,  internal  oppression;  and  breed 
ing,  besides,  in  the  minds  of  influential  partisans,  those 
fancies  of  feverish  ambition  which  are  not  easily  dis 
missed.  Adams  was  finally  unfortunate  in  having  been 
promoted  to  the  command  of  political  chieftains  who 
neither  implicitly  trusted  him  nor  performed  loyal  ser 
vice;  of  a  party  remarkably  intelligent,  yet  undisci 
plined,  and  liable  to  be  led  astray  by  malignant  and 
caballing  influences;  and  of  Cabinet  counsellors,  un 
worthy  the  name,  who  set  up  for  planets  when  they 
should  have  revolved  as  satellites. 

But  to  a  considerable  degree  John  Adams  was  his 
own  worst  enemy  for  bearing  successfully  the  respon 
sibilities  of  Chief  Magistrate  under  an  elective  govern 
ment  like  ours.  He  was  vain,  jealous  of  rivals,  ready 
to  suspect  the  worst  where  he  suspected  at  all,  over- 
imaginative,  irascible,  stubborn,  impatient  of  advice, 
apt  to  push  his  way  in  blind  rage  and  regardless  of  con 
sequences  where  his  temper  was  aroused.  Such  an 
Executive  is  not  easily  influenced  for  good  except  by 
those  who  humor  him  in  his  moods  and  take  care  not  to 
cross  his  prerogative;  others  may  impress,  indeed,  if 
their  views  are  sound,  but  not  correspondingly.  The 
brusque  manners  of  Adams,  his  imprudence  of  expres 
sion,  and  indiscreet  plain  speaking  (to  the  extent  almost 
of  thinking  aloud,  as  one  has  described  him),  though 
not  necessarily  offensive  to  personal  friends  and  equals 
who  could  take  him  as  he  meant,  were  to  most  men, 
especially  while  Adams  occupied  the  highest  dignity  in 
the  land  and  stood  without  official  equal,  an  obstacle 
to  free  intercourse  and  the  mutual  interchange  of  opin 
ions.  Unlike  Washington,  who  so  sedulously  sought 
advice,  the  new  President  seemed  to  confer  with  others 


CHARACTER  OF  ADAMS  73 

rather  for  the  purpose  of  imparting  his  own  views,  and 
those  most  likely  in  the  crude,  and  before  gaining  pos 
session  of  all  the  data  needful;  and  he  had  that  ten 
dency,  so  disagreeable  to  one  who  brings  suggestions, 
of  talking  others  down.  Advice  worked  upon  him; 
but  by  what  process  was  not  sufficiently  obvious  to  flat 
ter  the  person  offering  it,  since  the  first  impression  con 
veyed  to  Adams's  mind  by  the  tender  of  counsel 
appeared  to  be  the  disagreeable  one  that  he  stood  sadly 
in  need  of  it;  and  hence,  while  the  admonition  might 
sink  deep,  the  person  admonishing  became  painfully 
conscious  of  striking  at  once  upon  an  envious  and  sensi 
tive  surface,  which  emitted  angry  sparks  as  from  a  flint. 
In  this  important  respect  our  two  earliest  Presidents 
strongly  contrasted;  and  so,  too,  in  those  lesser  cour 
tesies  of  life  such  as  draw  closer  or  soothe  irritation; 
for  while  the  one  could  by  his  suavity  conquer  an  ene 
my,  the  other  imperilled  the  most  essential  friendship 
of  his  term  by  his  jealous  or  heedless  inattention. 

The  honest,  simple  frankness  of  Adams's  nature  was 
the  main  obstacle  to  the  display  of  that  light  polish  of 
daily  life  which  lends  such  a  charm  to  urbanity,  well 
as  he  could  comport  himself  on  great  occasions;  but 
other  traits  interfered  with  such  amenities,  not  so  cred 
itable  to  him.  If  it  be  not  literally  true,  as  some  opine, 
that  Adams,  as  President,  would  make  an  odious 
measure  more  odious  still  by  his  manner  of  executing 
it,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that,  at  least,  he  too  often 
displayed  an  unfortunate  capacity  for  taking  all  the 
grace  out  of  a  kindly  and  favoring  action,  and  stifling 
all  sense  of  gratitude  in  the  recipient,  by  the  unkindly 
or  ungracious  manner  in  which  he  performed  it.  How 
ever  near  he  might  have  ventured  to  the  ground  of  the 
opposition  leaders  at  times,  away  from  his  own  party 


74  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

lines,  he  seemed  to  feel  it  as  necessary  to  deride  their 
position  as  did  the  party  Federalists,  who,  more  con 
sistent,  blamed  him  for  wandering  thither. 

What  exposed  Adams  all  the  more  readily  to  censure 
and  misapprehension  was  his  constant  indisposition  in 
private  speech  to  acknowledge  to  their  full  the  broad 
and  lofty  motives  which  impelled  his  public  conduct, 
as  though  once  again  to  point  a  contrast  with  his  pred 
ecessor,  whose  calm  morality  was  too  much  a  matter 
of  principle  for  him  to  think  of  being  shamefaced  over 
it.  Adams,  pure,  disinterested,  upright,  as  we  must 
conceive  him  in  the  main,  had  yet  that  dread  of  cant 
which  marks  a  faulty  but  heroic  nature  struggling  with 
itself  and  yielding  much  to  impulse.  Hence  in  the  effort 
not  to  seem  better  than  he  really  was,  he  managed  at 
times  to  appear  much  worse;  giving  partial,  trivial,  un 
satisfactory  reasons  to  others  for  acts  which  some 
strong  conviction  of  right,  some  brave  resolution  well 
ing  from  the  lower  depths  of  his  generous  and  inde 
pendent  nature,  must  have  led  him  to  perform.  He 
would  talk  like  a  Diogenes  of  men  and  motives,  and 
profess  his  utter  contempt  for  the  public  whose  inter 
ests  he  was  doubtless  serving  with  all  his  might.  His 
ambition  for  distinction  was  both  purer  and  more  in 
tense  than  he  owned  to  himself. 

Adams  was,  as  those  who  knew  him  best  had 
observed  before  his  present  elevation,  a  bad  calculator 
of  the  probable  motives  of  other  men,  nor  possessed  of 
the  requisite  skill  for  managing  them.  Vehement  as 
he  had  been  in  earlier  years,  so  as  to  move  these 
Colonies  to  declare  for  independence,  it  was  his  elo 
quence,  his  scholarship,  his  literary  abilities,  and  the 
earnestness  of  his  conviction  as  one  of  a  deliberative 


CHARACTER  OF  ADAMS  75 

body  among  his  peers,  that  carried  persuasion.  When 
it  came  to  Executive  duties  and  being  looked  up  to  as 
a  political  commander,  the  conditions  of  success  were 
very  different.  Adams  was  not  steady  and  sure  in  his 
guidance,  nor  sufficiently  in  the  habit  of  directing  other 
minds,  to  impress  a  policy  upon  those  without  whose 
willing  co-operation  it  must  fail.  Rather  did  he  let 
affairs  drift  so  far  as  legislators  might  have  the  power 
of  control,  while  he,  for  his  part,  regulated  his  own 
department,  and  most  especially  the  diplomatic  part  of 
it,  with  a  predilection  for  managing  it  as  he  might  see 
fit.  As  all  worked  apart  so  much,  the  legislature  not 
consorting  with  the  Executive,  and  the  Executive  unin- 
fluential  in  the  legislature,  his  most  desired  measures 
passed  with  difficulty;  while  other  acts  went  through 
Congress  imposing  onerous  and  unpopular  duties  upon 
him,  which  he  appears  to  have  had  no  special  influence 
in  shaping,  but  for  which,  withholding  his  veto,  he  ap 
peared  to  the  ungrateful  public  willing  enough  to  take 
more  than  his  share  as  sponsor.  With  more  culpable 
indiscretion  he  permitted  official  subordinates,  stern, 
narrow-minded,  and  moreover  interested  in  their  mo 
tives,  to  present  to  the  country  an  administration  far 
more  spiteful  and  intolerant  than  he  desired  it,  and  less 
dispassionate  in  its  foreign  policy.  Eccentric  move 
ments,  sudden  starts,  inconsistent  turnings  perplexed 
the  spectator ;  and  this  happened  because  the  reins  were 
handled  by  too  many  Phaetons,  while  Phoebus  took  his 
vacation  and  exercised  only  a  sort  of  intermittent  au 
thority.  For  instead  of  allotting  to  each  subordinate 
his  just  responsibility  within  his  own  sphere  and  pre 
scribing  the  rules  for  all,  instead  of  taking  personal  heed 
to  the  whole  business  of  the  Executive,  the  President 


76  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

would  let  department  heads  combine  to  pull  the  admin 
istration,  with  outside  assistance,  in  whatever  direction 
they  might,  until  they  got  so  far  wrong  that  he  had  to 
interpose  again  to  set  things  as  they  should  be.  All  this 
was  partly  because  of  his  laxness  as  a  disciplinarian, 
his  indolence,  his  inaptitude  for  organizing,  his  indiffer 
ence  to  routine  details,  his  unbusinesslike  habits;  and, 
as  we  may  further  apprehend,  too,  because  Adams, 
somewhat  aware  of  his  own  shortcomings  in  respect  of 
moulding  and  conciliating  other  minds  so  as  to  keep 
the  topmost  place  securely  in  a  political  party,  schooled 
himself  in  such  a  sense  as  to  give  others  their  unhin 
dered  way  with  whom  he  thought  it  impolitic  to  break, 
but  whose  opinions  he  knew  not  how  to  respect,  nor 
how  to  adapt  their  public  ends  to  the  promotion  of  those 
he  desired  himself  to  pursue.  While  Washington  had 
kept  all  things,  great  and  small,  under  counsel,  Adams 
worked  without  system  or  vigilance  in  the  smaller  con 
cerns.  With  a  mind  too  vigorous  to  feel  the  need  of 
another's  advice,  he  encouraged  others  unintentionally 
to  misrepresent  and  misdirect  his  policy  and  lead  the 
general  public  to  false  estimates  of  his  probable  con 
duct.  It  was  with  reference,  perhaps,  to  his  proneness 
for  producing  such  external  misconceptions,  as  well 
as  to  those  fitful  gusts  of  temper  and  speculations  which 
caused  him  so  to  veer  in  his  solitary  course,  that  the 
sagacious  Franklin  once  made  the  remark,  of  late  fre 
quently  repeated  by  his  political  enemies,  that  Adams 
was  "always  an  honest  man,  often  a  wise  one,  but 
sometimes  wholly  out  of  his  senses." 

Adams  had,  nevertheless,  great  virtues  as  well  as 
great  failings.  Ambitious  though  he  might  be,  he  was 
the  soul  of  earnest  patriotism,  and  his  ideal  was  always 
a  lofty  one,  even  should  execution  fall  short  of  it.  An 


CHARACTER  OF  ADAMS  77 

accomplished  scholar,  a  statesman  who  had  experienced 
much  and  travelled  far,  one  of  a  vigorous  and  far- 
reaching  intellect,  he  comprehended  with  great  wisdom 
the  most  difficult  problems  which  his  administration 
encountered.  With  all  his  neglect  of  the  small  things, 
he  had,  doubtless,  more  than  others  appreciated,  a 
fixed  system  as  to  the  great;  and  this  in  his  foreign 
policy  most  particularly,  whose  management  he  re 
served  peculiarly  to  himself,  aware,  doubtless,  of  the 
delicacy  required  in  so  grave  a  situation,  and  confident 
that  he  understood  European  politics  and  diplomacy 
better  than  any  of  his  advisers.  The  general  maxims 
he  prescribed  in  his  inaugural  address  were  admirable. 
Adams  may  fairly  be  styled  the  father  of  our  Amer 
ican  navy;  for  to  his  perseverance  and  steady  interest 
in  its  establishment  we  owe  it  that  this  arm  of  the  ser 
vice  was  placed  for  the  first  time  upon  a  substantial 
and  permanent  footing.  His  penetrating  mind  had  dis 
covered,  quite  in  advance  of  his  times,  that  the  belliger 
ents  of  the  Old  World  would  not  respect  American 
commerce  while  it  remained  defenceless,  and  that  the 
first  successful  war  with  France  or  England  must  be 
waged  by  us  behind  wooden  walls  rather  than  ramparts. 
Whimsical  and  wrong-headed  as  Adams  might  be 
when  the  vapors  of  a  wounded  self-esteem  steamed  up 
and  beclouded  his  vision,  he  was,  apart  from  his  pecul 
iar  foibles,  consistent,  just  and  upright;  broad  in  his 
views  and  singularly  disinterested.  He  was  a  states 
man  whose  general  honesty  of  purpose  could  always 
be  relied  upon;  magnanimous  when  calm;  disposed, 
though  combative  of  disposition,  to  make  amends 
where  he  had  acted  hastily  and  passionately,  and  con 
sorting  with  men  of  liberal  and  enlightened  views. 
Nearly  all  of  the  great  appointments  to  office  during 


78  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

his  term  which  were  purely  of  his  own  selection  were 
not  merely  good  but  excellent,  and  worthy  of  compari 
son  with  any  made  by  his  predecessor;  those,  for  in 
stance,  of  Marshall  (whose  rapid  advancement  in  public 
station  was  o\ving  largely  to  the  favor  of  our  second 
President),  Stoddert,  and  Dexter;  of  both  sets  of  en 
voys  to  France,  Gerry  possibly  excepted;  and  of  the 
naval  commanders.  His  admirable  qualities  as  a  hus 
band  and  father,  his  fondness  for  his  farm,  and  the 
bosom  confidence  which  he  bestowed  upon  those  at 
home,  of  his  hopes  and  disappointments,  attest  the 
healthiness  of  his  moral  nature ;  though  one  must  admit 
that  his  private  virtues  were  not  practised  without 
some  public  detriment,  inasmuch  as  long  absence  from 
his  duties  obstructed  business,  and  his  ambition  to 
found  a  family  conspicuous  in  national  station  exposed 
him  to  the  imputation  of  nepotism.  Except  for  some 
ill-considered  utterances  in  the  season  of  war  fever,  his 
state  papers,  messages,  and  addresses  were  lofty  and 
well  expressed,  with  clear,  terse,  ringing  words  and 
sentences,  eminently  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  sure 
to  produce  a  popular  impression;  and  his  bearing  in 
public  was  dignified  and  manly,  the  more  pleasing  to  his 
countrymen  now  that  he  had  lowered  the  standard  of 
courtly  etiquette  with  which  he  had  set  out  as  Vice- 
President.  He  maintained  well  the  bearing  of  an 
American  Chief  Executive  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  so 
far  as  one,  whose  bravery  was  that  of  an  eminent  civil 
ian  alone,  might  be  expected  to.  An  Adams  could  stand 
courageously  even  when  he  had  to  stand  alone ;  no  bet 
ter  proof  of  which  need  be  recalled  than  the  grandly 
independent  and  fearless  course  he  took  in  sending  his 
second  and  successful  embassy  to  France  in  1799,  giv 
ing  peace  and  unexampled  prosperity  to  his  country 


DOWNFALL  OF   FEDERAL   PARTY   79 

(as  he  asserted  later),  against  the  advice,  entreaties, 
and  intrigues  of  his  ministers  and  all  the  leading  Fed 
eralists  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  This,  the  most 
questioned  of  all  his  actions,  for  which  his  breast  re 
ceived  the  poisoned  arrows  of  malicious  foes  within  his 
own  party,  years  after  his  unwelcome  retirement  from 
public  station,  was,  if  we  except  the  burning  record  of 
1776,  "the  most  disinterested,  the  most  determined, 
prudent,  and  successful  of  his  whole  life." 

With  all  his  speculative  tendencies  unfavorable  to 
Republican  experiments,  his  preference  for  a  strong 
government  and  executive  power,  John  Adams  was  in 
closer  sympathy  with  the  people  than  most  leaders  of 
the  party  to  which  he  belonged,  and  a  more  genuine 
American.  Hateful  of  European  governments  alike, 
he  loved  his  country  best  of  all.  To  be  "king  of  the 
commons/'  in  a  practical  sense,  would  not  have  ill- 
chimed  with  his  ambitious  fancies;  but  monarchist  he 
could  not  be  at  heart  in  the  United  States,  and  he  be 
came  well-nigh  a  Jeffersonian  Republican  before  he 
died. 


The  Federalist  party,  indeed,  was  already  too 
cramped  an  organization  to  hold  him.  That  party  had 
done  its  greatest  and  fittest  work  by  the  time  it  ac 
complished  its  earliest:  that,  in  brief,  of  framing  and 
establishing  the  more  perfect  Union,  which,  with  later 
changes,  has  stood  ever  since  secure.  Public  gratitude, 
and  the  disruption  of  political  opponents,  procured  a 
continuance  in  power  under  the  wing  of  Washington 
sufficiently  long  for  establishing  the  public  credit,  de 
veloping  the  resources  of  a  new  nation,  concluding 
peace  with  the  Indians  and  chief  European  countries, 


8o  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

and  raising  the  United  States  to  a  respectable  position 
before  the  civilized  world.  But  while  each  new  cham 
ber  was  added  to  the  shell,  the  nautilus  had  been  work 
ing  out.  Great  leaders  had  left  the  party;  and  by  the 
time  Washington  died  and  the  last  treaty  was  ratified, 
under  a  successor,  which  detached  the  American  Union 
from  this  European  war,  all  the  vitality  which  beauti 
fied  Federalism  was  gone.  Claims  it  certainly  had  still 
to  public  gratitude;  but  gratitude  for  the  past  will  not 
preserve  that  party  in  the  public  estimation  which  lags 
in  the  work  of  the  immediate  present.  Already  had  the 
political  leaders  with  whom  Federalism  was  now  most 
identified  taken  to  preparing  feigned  issues  to  supply 
the  want  of  genuine  ones;  and  they  strove  by  playing 
upon  the  wildest  fears  and  prejudices  of  the  multitude 
to  perpetuate  themselves  and  their  party  in  power. 
The  bickerings  of  great  rivals,  the  bureau  intrigues 
against  Adams  and  that  foreign  policy  of  pacification 
which  the  country  most  desired,  the  centralizing 
schemes,  the  usurious  loans,  the  high  salaries,  the 
multiplicity  of  offices,  the  taxes,  the  provisional  armies, 
the  exhausting  war  preparations  without  an  enemy  in 
sight — all  this,  even  such  of  it  as  prudence  might  well 
have  justified,  was  lead  to  the  neck  of  the  party  which 
struggled  to  bear  up  the  general  responsibilities  through 
an  angry  sea. 

No  political  party  in  a  time  of  popular  commotion 
could  ever  boast  in  America  a  more  splendid  body  of 
voters;  social  rank,  talent,  wealth,  learning,  supported 
Federalism,  in  New  England  more  especially.  But  in 
that  same  section  where  the  brain  of  the  party  was 
located,  and  among  those  whom  Hamilton  chiefly  influ 
enced,  were  to  be  seen  too  many  leaders  whose  tastes 


DOWNFALL  OF   FEDERAL   PARTY    81 

were  infallibly  to  keeping  up  a  rule  of  social  caste,  and 
who  despised  too  greatly  our  essay  at  self-rule  and  the 
sense  of  a  commonalty.  A  government  like  ours  could 
not  walk  alone,  they  thought,  nor  hardly  stand,  and 
they  must  guide  its  footsteps.  On  the  contrary,  the 
time  had  now  come  when  political  nurture  could  be  dis 
pensed  with,  and  a  healthy,  robust  public  opinion 
allowed  an  oportunity  to  develop.  The  Alien  and  Se 
dition  laws,  all  that  machinery  for  compulsory  disci 
pline,  tottered  to  the  ground,  carrying  those  who  had 
sought  to  erect  it.  Federalism  was  lost  in  the  first  hour 
of  its  absolute  supremacy,  and  as  soon  as  it  essayed  in 
earnest  to  rule  the  American  people  by  its  own  effete 
maxims. 

Unfitted  by  temperament  for  dealing  with  the  new 
conditions  presented  in  our  constitutional  American 
experiment,  bewildered,  indocile,  as  little  capable  of 
playing  sycophant  to  the  common  mass  as  of  believing 
in  a  self-constrained  democracy,  the  leaders  hitherto 
prominent  in  national  affairs  soon  disappeared  from  the 
scene,  or  remained  to  play  the  part  of  useless  obstruct- 
ors.  Some  of  the  greatest  Federalists  withdrew  into 
the  Judiciary  Department,  there  to  escape  political  re 
sponsibility.  Others  became  governors  and  legislators 
in  their  native  States.  Wrapping  himself  in  his  man 
tle  of  pride,  the  Bourbon  Federalist  watched  wearily 
for  Jacobinism  to  run  out  its  course.  The  sun  of  Fed 
eralism  had  sunk  forever,  going  down  in  the  murky 
sunset  of  its  discreditable  Presidential  intrigues.  The 
first  national  party  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  this  Consti 
tutional  Union  expired  with  the  administration  of  the 
second  President.  Hushed  was  its  voice  of  command. 
And  yet  so  constantly  had  it  ruled,  so  firmly,  and  in  the 


82  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

main  so  beneficently,  even  when  despotically,  that  men 
gathered  in  its  death-chamber  like  that  of  the  great 
Roman  emperor,  and  tendered  their  homage  to  the  illus 
trious  remains  as  they  lay  in  solemn  pomp,  long  after 
the  last  vital  breath  had  departed. 


CHAPTER    V. 

FIRST    ADMINISTRATION    OF    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Seventh  Congress.  March  4,  i8oi-March  3,  1803. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Eighth  Congress.  March  4,  i8o3-March  3, 
1805. 

THE  first  inaugural  ceremonies  ever  conducted 
at  the  permanent  capital  of  this  nation  took 
place  on  the  4th  of  March,   1801,  at  noon, 
when  Thomas  Jefferson  was  there  inducted  into  office, 
as  the  third  President  of  the  United  States. 

Though  the  order  of  exercises  was  similar  to  that 
of  former  occasions,  and  the  day  was  celebrated  in  Phil 
adelphia  and  the  Virginia  towns  with  speeches,  pro 
cessions,  salutes,  and  the  ringing  of  bells,  the  scene 
at  the  Federal  capital  was  unimposing,  as  befitted  the 
inauguration,  in  a  forest  city,  of  one  who  at  all  times 
looked  with  singular  contempt  upon  dazzling  and  osten 
tatious  public  spectacles.  Pennsylvania  Avenue  was 
not  the  scene  of  a  military  pageant;  it  was  as  yet 
scarcely  more  than  a  footway  cut  through  bushes  and 
briers  and  aided  in  places  by  gravel  and  chips  of  free 
stone.  Attired  in  the  dress  of  a  plain  citizen,  Jefferson 
crossed  over  to  the  Capitol  from  his  lodgings  at  Con 
rad's,  on  the  hill,  some  two  hundred  paces  distant,  to 
take  the  oath  of  office.  Whether  he  went  on  foot,  or 
rode  his  horse, — dismounting,  on  this  occasion,  as  he 
often  used  to  do  later,  when  paying  Congress  a  visit, 
and  then  hitching  the  steed  unaided, — is  in  historical 


84  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

dispute ;  but  in  either  case  posterity  is  taught  the  same 
impressive  lesson  of  ceremonial  simplicity.  He  en 
tered  the  Senate  chamber  at  the  north  wing,  which, 
being  partly  finished,  might  accommodate  both  Houses. 
That  there  was  something  of  a  procession  appears  most 
probable;  for  Jefferson  came  attended  by  a  number  of 
his  fellow-citizens,  mounted  and  on  foot.  He  found 
the  new  freestone  structure  thronged  at  his  arrival  with 
spectators  eager  for  the  induction  ceremonies  to  begin. 

The  Senate  had  previously  convened  in  extra  ses 
sion,  summoned  by  the  late  President ;  and  the  polished 
Burr,  by  this  time  sworn  into  the  office  which  the  voice 
of  his  party  had  originally  assigned  to  him,  took  posi 
tion  in  the  unfinished  chamber,  on  Jefferson's  right, 
while  Marshall,  the  Chief  Justice,  sat  upon  the  left. 
Many  members  of  the  late  House,  Federalists  as  well 
as  Republicans,  had  remained  over,  out  of  respect  or 
curiosity,  to  attend  the  inauguration ;  most  of  the  cab 
inet  and  other  high  functionaries  of  the  late  administra 
tion  occupied  their  places;  but  it  was  matter  of  open 
comment  that  neither  President  Adams  nor  Speaker 
Sedgwick  was  present,  both  having  left  the  city  at  day 
break. 

Jefferson's  inaugural  address  remains  a  model  of  its 
kind;  conciliatory,  elevated  in  tone,  full  of  hope  and 
confidence  in  the  American  experiment ;  modest,  never 
theless,  as  to  personal  merits.  In  a  strain  of  eloquent 
thought,  unadorned  by  graces  of  deliver)' — for  Jeffer 
son  was  no  orator — he  depicted  "a  rising  nation,  spread 
over  a  wide  and  fruitful  land,  traversing  all  the  seas 
with  the  rich  productions  of  their  industry,  engaged 
in  commerce  with  nations  who  feel  power  and  forget 
right,  advancing  rapidly  to  destinies  beyond  the  reach 
of  mortal  eye."  Of  the  strength  and  adequacy  of  this, 


JEFFERSON'S   INAUGURATION        85 

a  republican  government,  for  its  own  preservation,  he 
boldly  declared  himself  profoundly  convinced.  So  far 
from  admitting  that  possibly  this  Federal  system,  the 
world's  best  hope,  was  wanting  in  energy,  "I  believe 
this,  on  the  contrary,"  said  he,  "the  strongest  govern 
ment  on  earth.  I  believe  it  is  the  only  one  where  every 
man,  at  the  call  of  the  laws,  would  fly  to  the  standard 
of  the  land,  and  would  meet  invasions  of  the  public 
order  as  his  own  personal  concern." 

Introducing  thus  the  thought  that  the  strongest  of 
rulers  is  the  people  capable  of  self-rule,  he  appealed  at 
the  same  time  for  that  unity  of  action  which  all  politi 
cal  parties  ought  to  subserve.  Minorities  should  be 
generously  respected.  "  Every  difference  of  opinion 
is  not  a  difference  of  principle.  We  have  called  by  dif 
ferent  names  brethren  of  the  same  principle.  We  are 
all  Republicans. — We  are  Federalists.  If  there  be  any 
among  us  who  would  wish  to  dissolve  this  Union  or  to 
change  its  republican  form,  let  them  stand  undisturbed 
as  monuments  of  the  safety  with  which  error  of  opin 
ion  may  be  tolerated  where  reason  is  left  free  to  com 
bat  it." 

The  inaugural  address  impressed  the  country  most 
favorably.  Popular  government  was  taught  to  fly  by 
making  use  of  its  own  wings.  Never  had  American 
executive  so  confided  himself  in  language  to  the  good 
will  of  those  he  had  been  elected  to  govern.  Had  he 
thus  confided,  or  did  he  flatter?  But,  while  the  great 
body  of  Federalists  saw  in  these  maxims  much  to  which 
they  could  heartily  subscribe,  much  indeed  that  in  the 
heat  of  political  strife  they  had  been  taught  to  disso 
ciate  from  Jefferson  and  his  followers,  their  ruling 
minds  construed  this  address  too  readily  into  a  surren 
der  of  principles  and  patronage.  Jefferson  was  too 


86  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

consummate  a  politician  to  intend  anything  of  the  kind. 
His  design  was,  of  course,  to  harmonize  parties;  not, 
however,  by  making  peace  with  the  chieftains  who  had 
perversely  opposed  him,  but  by  drawing  from  them 
their  own  followers.  His  opportunity  was  good  for 
setting  the  Union  on  the  Republican  tack.  The  course 
of  affairs  in  Europe  had  dispelled  the  first  sanguine 
illusions  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  Americans  were 
more  cordially  united  in  that  policy  of  strict  neutrality 
which  Washington's  Farewell  Address  commended. 
Adams  had  unravelled  the  worst  knot  in  our  foreign 
relations.  Peacefully  disposed  towards  all  Europe, 
America  had  struck  the  high  road  to  plenty  and  pros 
perity.  Republicanism,  in  order  to  succeed,  needed, 
therefore,  to  develop  not  an  external  so  much  as  an 
internal  policy ;  and  it  was  upon  the  latter  that  Jefferson 
relied  most  at  the  outset  to  give  his  cause  stability  and 
earn  the  general  gratitude. 


Jefferson's  designs  developed  more  clearly  when  he 
began  appointing  to  office.  With  reference  to  patron 
age  the  situation  was  certainly  very  delicate.  For  the 
first  time  a  new  national  party  had  been  lifted  into 
power ;  a  party  whose  members  had  for  the  four  years 
previous  been  jealously  excluded  and  even  removed 
from  office  because  of  their  politics.  None  could  deny 
that  Republicans  had  a  reasonable  claim  to  vacancies 
which  might  occur  until  they  should  fairly  participate 
in  the  national  offices.  Moreover,  the  recent  conduct 
of  prominent  Federalists  in  the  Burr  intrigue,  and  the 
enlargement  of  the  national  judiciary  as  their  last 
stronghold, — President  Adams's  "midnight  appoint 
ments,"  too,  as  they  were  called,  made  during  the  ex- 


JEFFERSON'S    APPOINTMENTS       87 

piring  hours  of  his  own  administration,  for  the  purpose 
of  forestalling  a  successor's  discretion  whom  the  coun 
try  had  months  before  elected  over  him, — had  been  too 
outrageous  for  the  new  President  to  overlook,  much 
less  to  sanction.  While  once  more  Jefferson  prepared 
to  accept  and  consolidate  with  the  Republican  body  the 
many  Federalists  who  now  seemed  disposed  to  recon 
ciliation,  he  perceived  that  pride  and  obstinacy  would 
restrain  their  most  powerful  leaders  from  coalescing, 
and  more  particularly  that  in  the  Eastern  quarter, 
where  British  prepossessions  were  strong,  and  the  influ 
ence  of  the  Congregational  clergy  and  the  ruling  fami 
lies  had  been  so  constantly  cast  against  him,  prejudice 
would  remain  inveterate.  The  advice  given  by  some 
of  his  more  zealous  political  friends  was  to  purge  out 
the  offices  thoroughly,  and  the  party  pressure  for  place 
was,  of  course,  very  great. 

But  Jefferson  by  no  means  inclined  to  the  doctrine 
of  portioning  out  official  places  as  the  spoils  of  a  party 
or  of  personal  triumph.  While  refusing,  from  princi 
ple,  to  elevate  his  chief  opponents  to  office,  and  deter 
mined  to  ship  forever  out  of  influence  the  Essex  junto, 
the  monarchists  and  the  British  faction  (so  he  styled 
them),  as  men  to  be  tolerated  but  not  trusted,  he  yet 
thought  it  both  just  and  prudent  to  deprive  none  of 
office  on  political  grounds  alone.  Reflection  brought 
him  to  the  following  conclusions :  ( i )  That  as  to  the 
appointments  to  civil  offices  at  executive  pleasure  which 
his  predecessor  had  made  after  the  Presidential  result 
was  known,  no  mercy  should  be  shown.  (2)  That 
officers  guilty  of  official  misconduct  (or,  one  might  add, 
notoriously  inefficient)  were  proper  subjects  of  re 
moval.  (3)  That  good  men  differing  only  in  political 
belief,  and  performing  their  functions  diligently,  were 


88  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

not  proper  subjects  of  removal.  Another  cause  for 
removal  occurred  to  him  after  some  experience:  that 
of  electioneering  activity,  or  of  open,  persistent,  and 
industrious  opposition  to  the  principles  of  his  admin 
istration;  for  while,  he  said,  every  officer  of  the  gov 
ernment  might  vote  at  elections  according  to  his  con 
science,  he  should  betray  the  cause  committed  to  his 
own  care  were  he  to  permit  the  influence  of  official  pat 
ronage  to  be  used  to  overthrow  that  cause. 

Jefferson's  methods  of  appointment  indicate  the 
gloved  hand,  steadiness  of  purpose  as  well  as  delicacy 
in  management,  a  combination  of  qualities  which  goes 
far  towards  securing  political  success.  But  beyond  this 
he  soon  proved  that  he  had  the  power  of  inspiring  con 
fidence  and  of  impressing  his  ideas  upon  those  with 
whom  he  was  brought  into  the  closest  relations.  No 
President  ever  kept  such  peace  in  his  official  household, 
or  sat  so  gracefully  at  the  head  of  the  council  board. 
His  Postmaster-General  and  all  of  his  cabinet  advisers 
remained  long  in  place:  Madison,  Gallatin,  and  Dear 
born  through  the  entire  administration  of  eight  years; 
Gallatin  and  Granger  some  five  years  longer. 

"The  third  administration,  which  was  of  eight 
years,"  wrote  Jefferson  in  1811,  "presented  an  exam 
ple  of  harmony  in  a  cabinet  of  six  persons,  to  which 
perhaps  history  has  furnished  no  parallel.  There  never 
arose,  during  the  whole  time,  an  instance  of  an  unpleas 
ant  thought  or  word  between  the  members.  We  some 
times  met  under  differences  of  opinion,  but  scarcely 
ever  failed,  by  conversing  and  reasoning,  so  to  modify 
each  other's  ideas  as  to  produce  a  unanimous  result." 
This  harmony  was  owing,  in  no  slight  degree,  to  the 
rule  with  which  the  new  President  set  out,  of  making 
himself  a  central  point  for  the  different  branches  of 


JEFFERSON'S   CABINET  89 

the  Executive,  so  as  to  preserve  unity  of  object  and 
meet  the  due  responsibility  for  whatever  was  done.  As 
he  planned  the  work  of  practical  administration,  the 
ordinary  business  of  every  day  was  to  be  transacted 
upon  consultation  between  the  President  and  the  head 
of  that  department  alone  to  which  it  belonged.  For 
measures  of  importance  or  difficulty  consultation  with 
the  heads  of  departments  was  needful ;  and  for  this  he 
preferred  in  theory  to  take  their  opinions  separately,  in 
conversation  or  in  writing;  thus  leaving  the  President 
free,  without  any  needless  clash  of  opinion  or  rivalry 
among  those  he  had  consulted,  to  make  up  an  opinion 
for  himself;  but  he  practised  the  open  cabinet  method 
of  his  predecessors  without  experiencing  any  ill  results. 
The  latter  is  now  the  confirmed  practice  of  govern 
ment;  "yet,"  said  Jefferson,  who  held  firmly  to  Presi 
dential  responsibility,  "this  does,  in  fact,  transform  the 
executive  into  a  directory,  and  I  hold  the  other  method 
to  be  more  constitutional." 


The  ex-President  found  retirement,  but  not  repose, 
at  Quincy,  his  tempestuous  nature  struggling  under 
a  political  reverse,  which  the  opprobrium  of  those  he 
had  led  to  defeat,  for  whose  own  perverseness  he  was 
compelled  to  suffer,  together  with  comparisons  invited 
by  the  new  administration  to  his  detriment,  made  ter 
ribly  humiliating.  A  far  happier  privacy  was  that 
which  rounded  the  useful  existence  of  the  upright  and 
philanthropic  Jay,  who  left  politics  voluntarily,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-six,  devoting  a  final  third  of  his  life  to  works 
of  benevolence,  and  surviving  all  enmities.  Cheerful, 
of  independent  means,  a  devout  Episcopalian,  an  anti- 
slavery  champion,  his  mind  did  not  rust  in  his  country 


90  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

home.     "I  have  a  long  life  to  look  back  upon,"  he 
would  say,  "and  an  eternity  to  look  forward  to." 

Thriving,  like  many  of  his  political  friends,  with 
the  best  briefs  which  professional  eminence  could  com 
mand,  Hamilton  grew,  nevertheless,  despondent  of 
America,  and  of  his  personal  future ;  for  nothing  could 
reconcile  such  a  spirit  to  the  commonplace  of  life.  He 
tried  to  enjoy  the  beautiful  country-seat  he  had  lately 
purchased,  and  his  garden,  "the  usual  refuge,"  as  he 
would  say,  "of  a  disappointed  politician."  "What 
can  I  do  better,"  he  asked,  gloomily,  "than  withdraw 
from  the  scene?  Every  day  proves  to  me  more  and 
more  that  this  American  world  was  not  made  for  me." 


The  famous  Louisiana  treaty  was  signed  May  3, 
1803,  in  the  French  language,  and  two  or  three  days 
after  in  English.  On  the  Sunday  previous  to  its  exe 
cution,  Livingston  presented  his  colleague  to  Napoleon, 
and  both  dined  with  him  afterwards.  The  Consul  asked 
many  questions,  after  his  quick,  catechizing  fashion, 
concerning  the  United  States,  Jefferson,  and  the  Fed 
eral  city.  "You  Americans,"  said  he,  "did  brilliant 
things  in  your  war  with  England ;  you  will  do  the  same 
again."  Monroe,  parrying  this  thrust  at  our  neutral 
policy,  responded  that  the  Americans  would  always 
behave  well  when  it  was  their  lot  to  go  to  war.  Mar- 
bois  relates  that  as  soon  as  the  three  negotiators  had 
signed  the  treaties  they  all  rose  and  shook  hands;  Liv 
ingston,  who  was  a  man  of  dignified  presence,  giving 
utterance  to  his  joy  and  satisfaction  in  feeling  that  the 
United  States  now  took  a  position  among  the  powers 
of  the  first  rank. 

By  this  sudden,  momentous,  and  in  its  full  extent 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE         91 

and  scope,  unexpected  acquisition  of  territory,  the 
United  States  were  indeed  placed  at  the  portals  of  an 
illustrious  career.  But  yesterday  the  Mississipppi  was 
the  barrier  of  our  national  ambition,  and  a  foreign  king 
considered  whether  his  own  license  restrained  him  from 
shutting  up  the  outlet  to  our  Western  commerce.  A 
stroke  of  the  pen  changed  all ;  and  to-day  a  vast,  unex 
plored,  almost  illimitable  empire  was  ours ;  perpetual 
immunity  from  dangerous  neighbors ;  sole  possession 
of  this  river  of  rivers,  with  all  its  tributaries;  a  sure 
dominating  influence  in  the  affairs  of  the  North  Amer 
ican  continent;  national  opportunities  for  the  dim 
future  almost  depressing  in  their  sublimity.  Where, 
now,  would  the  long  surf  of  our  advancing  civilization 
dash  into  spray?  Hitherto  natural  barriers,  those 
surest  bound-marks  and  protectors  from  foes  within 
and  without,  arrested  our  progress;  henceforth,  the 
tide  of  emigration  would  sweep  from  post  to  post,  en 
croaching  upon  foreign  populations  too  weak  every 
where  to  resist;  nor,  unless  internal  decay  and  dis 
memberment  arrested  the  novel  experiment,  finding 
effectual  bulwark  or  breakwater  interposed  east  of  the 
Pacific  or  north  of  the  Isthmus,  while  an  acre  of  de 
sirable  territory  was  left.  Would  that  encroachment 
go  on  forever  or  would  dismemberment  interrupt  it? 

Hopes  and  misgivings  together  like  these  filled  Jef 
ferson's  mind  as  he  contemplated  the  grandeur  of  the 
new  purchase.  Not  fully  observant  of  the  latitude  line 
which  slavery  had  begun  to  draw  across  the  Union, 
he  meditated  upon  a  possible  separation  which  the  great 
longitudinal  river  might  at  some  later  age  accomplish. 
West  Mississippi  and  East  Mississippi  might  hereafter 
separate,  and  these  millions  of  acres  with  their  varied 
productions  pass  into  the  control  of  a  confederacy  de- 


92  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tachecl  from  that  which  now  purchased  them.  But  this 
was  a  remote  danger,  too  remote  to  affect  living  men, 
and  far  less  a  present  evil  than  that  of  a  hostile  nation's 
occupation.  "The  future  inhabitants  of  the  Atlantic 
and  Mississippi  States,"  such  were  his  thoughts,  "will 
be  our  sons.  We  leave  them  in  distinct  but  bordering 
establishments.  We  think  we  see  their  happiness  in 
their  union,  and  we  wish  it." 

One  serious  doubt  in  Jefferson's  mind  was  the  con 
stitutionality  of  thus  extending  the  area  of  the  United 
States.  As  a  strict  constructionist,  he  considered  that 
our  fundamental  charter  made  no  provision  for  acquir 
ing  new  and  foreign  territory,  still  less  for  incorporat 
ing  foreign  nations  with  the  Union  at  discretion.  But 
Spain's  opposition  on  the  solemn  grounds  we  have  indi 
cated,  and  rumors,  besides,  that  France  had  already 
repented  of  the  bargain,  determined  him  in  favor  of  the 
most  instant  and  explicit  consummation;  after  which 
he  thought  appeal  might  be  made  to  the  nation  for  a 
suitable  amendment  to  the  constitution.  Ultimately, 
however,  he  yielded  his  judgment  in  favor  qf  the  looser 
constitutional  construction  which  Gallatin  and  others 
of  his  immediate  counsellors  advocated.  The  right  of 
territorial  expansion  on  this  continent,  coupled  with  an 
equal  participation  by  the  annexed  people  in  funda 
mental  American  rights,  dangerous  though  such  a  doc 
trine  may  be  if  pushed  far,  has  since  been  firmly  grafted 
upon  the  constitution  in  practice,  as  incidental  to  the 
powers  originally  conferred  by  that  instrument. 


Thrust  out  of  influence,  bankrupt  in  purse  and  pros 
pects,  politically  discarded  by  his  State  and  by  the 
national  Republican  party,  his  Federal  coalition  a 


BURR  AND  HAMILTON   DUEL       93 

failure,  Burr  sought  a  desperate  revenge.  Unable 
to  make  specific  charges,  he  now  demanded  imperi 
ously  of  Hamilton  a  broad  disavowal  of  all  offensive 
expressions  concerning  him,  or  else  the  satisfaction 
usual  among  gentlemen.  Finding  Burr  inflexible, 
Hamilton  chose  the  latter  alternative;  reason  and  con 
science  protesting  against  an  encounter  to  which  his 
romantic  sense  of  honor  impelled  him,  and  which  he 
hoped  to  justify  by  sparing  in  any  event  the  life  of  the 
man  who  sought  his  blood.  He  was  not  without  pre 
sentiment  that  he  would  be  a  victim ;  and  Burr,  who  felt 
no  compunction,  practised  carefully  at  a  mark  to  make 
sure  of  it.  The  duel,  after  being  postponed  to  an  op 
portunity  mutually  convenient,  took  place  I8o4 
in  the  gray  of  a  July  morning  on  the  Jersey  July  "' I2- 
shore.  The  parties  were  prompt  with  their  seconds  and 
attendants.  On  the  signal  Burr  raised  his  arm,  took 
aim  with  coolness  and  precision,  and  shot  Hamilton  in 
the  right  side.  Hamilton's  pistol  went  off  into  the  air 
as  if  involuntarily,  and  he  fell  upon  his  face  mortally 
wounded.  Burr  fled ;  his  fainting  victim  was  conveyed 
across  the  river  by  boat  once  more ;  and  in  the  house  of 
his  second,  after  suffering  great  agony  of  mind  and 
body,  he  expired  the  next  day. 

Thus  unhappily  was  flung  away  one  of  the  most  viva 
cious  spirits  ever  yet  vouchsafed  to  this  New  World. 
Hamilton's  soaring  greatness,  his  energy,  his  fertility 
in  resources,  and  the  faults  in  combination  with  the  vir 
tues  of  his  remarkable  character,  we  have  sought  faith 
fully  to  depict  in  the  course  of  this  narrative.  As  his 
views  on  political  subjects  were  expressed  plainly  and 
frankly  in  writing  on  every  emergency,  exploring  from 
top  to  bottom,  so  to  speak,  and  as  his  writings  have 
been  published,  only  they  need  misunderstand  Hamil- 


94  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ton  at  this  day  who  rely  upon  the  exaggerated  phrase 
of  contemporaries;  of  those  on  the  one  hand  who  felt 
that  the  Union  could  not  endure  with  him,  and  of  those 
on  the  other  who  were  assured  that  it  could  not  last 
without  him.  No  estimate,  however,  of  Hamilton  can 
be  complete  which  fails  to  take  into  account  the  pre 
cocity  of  his  intellect  and  the  almost  juvenile  stage  of 
that  career  which  was  so  illustrious  under  all  discour 
agements.  This  prodigy  of  executive  ability;  this 
Caesar  of  a  commonplace  world,  which  yielded,  unfor 
tunately  for  the  scope  of  his  powers,  more  to  laws  than 
to  individuals ;  this  financier,  whose  feats  with  the  pub 
lic  credit  had  astonished  two  continents;  this  imperial 
soul,  which  had  dwelt  in  near  companionship  to  Wash 
ington;  this  statesman,  who  at  thirty-five  despised  the 
subtle  Jefferson,  a  man  nearly  fifty,  who  sought  at  the 
same  time  to  bend  that  venerable  oak,  John  Adams,  who 
never  doubted  his  own  position  among  the  wealthiest, 
the  oldest  in  family  influence,  in  a  country  upon  which  he 
had  been  cast,  a  waif ;  this  wonderful  American  reached 
the  zenith  of  his  public  influence  when  about  thirty,  and 
died  at  forty-seven.  What  might  he  not  have  accom 
plished,  it  may  be  asked,  had  he  lived  to  devote  his 
riper  years  to  his  fellow-countrymen  ?  Not,  we  appre 
hend,  a  new  and  more  brilliant  public  career.  For  the 
more  that  political  power  passed  to  the  American  mass, 
the  more  surely  was  he  cut  off  from  participating  in  it. 
Hamilton  was  fitted  to  rule  a  decaying,  but  not  to  lead 
a  rising  republic.  He  was  boldest  in  time  of  public  dan 
ger,  and  only  despaired  when  all  was  peace  and  safety, 
so  that  personal  prowess  would  be  impossible.  As 
Gouverneur  Morris,  his  sympathetic  friend  and  eulo 
gist,  felt  compelled  to  admit,  Hamilton  was  covetous  of 
glory  more  than  of  wealth  or  power,  and  while  con- 


DEATH   OF   HAMILTON  95 

scious  that  a  monarchy  in  America  was  unattainable, 
so  constantly  and  indiscreetly  avowed  his  attachment 
to  it,  that  he  cut  himself  off  from  all  chance  of  rising 
into  office.  And  it  is  certain  that  to  Washington's  per 
sonal  friendship  and  protection  he  owed  almost  solely 
his  political  opportunities,  the  strongest  partisans  not 
daring  to  expose  him  to  the  test  of  the  ballot.  Among 
distinguished  men  the  popular  instinct  rarely  errs  as  to 
genuine  friends,  or  rejects  without  a  cause;  calumnies 
manifold  could  not  extinguish  the  popularity  of  a 
Washington  or  a  Jay.  Hamilton  would  have  grown 
prudent ;  but  with  his  social,  professional,  and  political 
friendships  he  was  likely  to  pass  into  a  confirmed  pes 
simist.  Too  frank  to  suppress  his  own  convictions,  too 
honorable  to  meanly  court  applause,  he  had  likewise 
too  much  pride  of  intellect  to  acknowledge  error.  His 
ideal  of  distinction  was  irreconcilable  with  respect  for 
the  common  sense  and  common  dignity  of  mankind ;  he 
asked  little  advice,  trusting  his  untried  pinions  on  the 
widest  flight;  and  lovable,  as  doubtless  he  was,  in  his 
own  circle,  he  was  incapable  of  becoming  in  the  broad 
sense  a  lover  of  the  people.  But  supposing  Hamilton's 
patriotism  to  have  broken  out  in  a  new  flame  when  our 
later  troubles  came  with  Europe,  dissolving  his  British 
prepossessions,  and  restoring  him  and  Madison  to  their 
youthful  harmony,  what  glory  might  not  have  re 
dounded  to  the  American  arms  under  such  a  com 
mander  ?  Hamilton  was,  however,  a  scholar  in  his  lei 
sure  hours,  studious  of  the  ancients,  interested,  too,  in 
modern  systems,  observant  of  foreign  precedents. 
Aside  from  his  professional  acquirements,  which  were 
enough  to  bring  him  fame  and  an  ample  competence, 
he  might  have  become  a  philosopher,  an  expounder  of 
comparative  politics,  an  American  Montesquieu.  Tow- 


96  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ards  such  an  investigation,  in  truth,  his  active  mind, 
released  from  public  responsibilities,  had  latterly 
turned. 

But  an  enemy's  bullet  stopped  all  opportunities  for 
good  or  ill.  Hamilton  perished  untimely ;  a  disbeliever 
in  national  dismemberment,  but  to  the  last  a  dreamer, 
a  fatalist,  lamenting  a  political  system  which  seemed 
poisoned  with  democracy,  and  recognizing  it  as  his 
paramount  duty  to  maintain  the  code  of  honor  in  view 
of  emergencies  which  might  later  arise.  A  grand  im 
pulse  to  our  national  system,  with  consolidation  as  the 
corrective  of  a  confederacy;  liberal  national  powers; 
protection,  force,  and  energy  in  the  central  government ; 
financial  stability, — these  were  Hamilton's  great  leg 
acy  to  the  American  Union. 


Of  all  advisers  Jefferson's  most  valuable  were  his 
two  chief  Secretaries;  both  men  of  excellent  parts  and 
experience,  believers  in  his  fundamental  policy  and  in 
the  sincerity  with  which  he  pursued  it,  respecters  of  one 
another.  A  combination  so  felicitous  at  the  head  of 
affairs  as  that  of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Gallatin  has 
seldom  been  seen.  The  chief  had  the  faculty  of  origi 
nating,  the  enthusiastic  temperament,  the  wide  philan 
thropy,  the  gift  of  managing  men ;  the  others,  who  were 
less  buoyant  and  magnetic,  more  conservative,  more 
respectful  of  precedent  and  more  distrustful,  fitted  ad 
mirably  their  subordinate,  yet  exalted  station,  and 
checked  Jefferson  in  the  disposition  to  doctrinize  and 
innovate.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  two  men,  marked 
hitherto  as  leaders  in  legislative  proceedings,  quickly 
developed  good  business  methods  in  their  executive 
administration;  and  still  further  that,  transferred  to 


MADISON    AND   GALLATIN          97 

the  cabinet  in  the  prime  of  life,  each  devoted  to  the 
public  a  long  future  without  ever  entering  a  legislature 
again,  or  extending  his  fame  as  an  orator.  Madison, 
to  be  sure,  held  a  department  which  the  immediate  Pres 
ident  was  most  competent  to  direct;  while  Galiatin  be 
came  a  financier  and  specialist,  whose  functions,  less 
capable  of  Presidential  guidance,  were,  for  the  present 
term  certainly,  the  most  essential  of  all  to  the  prosper 
ity  of  a  Republican  administration  whose  prime  con 
cern  it  was  to  retrench  expenditures,  pay  off  the  public 
debt,  and  collect  a  rising  revenue. 

We  are  to  picture  the  American  Neckar  at  this  time 
as  a  compact  man  of  medium  stature,  with  black  hair, 
a  bald  head,  dreamy,  hazel  eyes,  dark  complexion,  and 
a  countenance  which  indicated  self-absorption,  prudent 
calculation,  reticence,  and  excessive  caution ;  Swiss,  not 
French,  in  temperament ;  a  wholly  different  personage, 
in  truth,  from  the  crack-brained  zealot,  whiskey  insur 
rectionist,  and  frog-eating  foreigner,  depicted  by  the 
imagination  of  those  who  had  never  beheld  him.  He 
was  temperate  in  habits,  somewhat  shy,  and  the  hardest 
worked  man  at  the  capital ;  taking  little  recreation,  nor 
knowing  well  how  to  enjoy  it.  Not  equal  to  Hamilton 
as  a  financier  to  rear  a  system  from  the  foundation, 
Galiatin  was  a  much  safer  custodian  of  the  purse  when 
economies  and  husbandry  were  in  order.  Cold  and  re 
served,  as  always,  commanding  respect  in  his  party  for 
talents,  purity,  and  principle,  but  no  longer  conspicu 
ous,  if  ever  so,  for  a  lawless  intolerance  of  ills  incurable, 
Galiatin  felt  in  his  new  position  the  necessity  of  con 
ciliating  capital  and  those  money  centres  where  only 
conservatism  can  command.  An  exile  of  choice,  patri 
cian  in  birth,  he  felt  the  exile's  isolation ;  his  heart  ex 
panded  in  the  domestic  circle,  but  that  circle  was  a  nar- 


98  EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

row  one;  for  the  rest  he  found  friends,  and  powerful 
ones,  but  not  intimate,  and  such  for  the  most  part  as 
watch  sedulously  the  political  barometer.  Had  preju 
dice  availed,  as  he  once  feared  it  would,  to  keep  him  out 
of  Jefferson's  cabinet,  he  intended  moving  to  New  York 
City  and  practising  at  the  bar.  As  a  cabinet  officer,  and 
one  dependent  upon  his  salary,  he  grew  very  nervous 
over  the  turmoil  of  factions  in  the  great  middle  State 
and  section  he  represented,  and,  unlike  the  President, 
would  have  temporized  with  Burr  and  held  the  rod  over 
Duane.  Not  a  false  friend,  Gallatin  kept  too  much 
guard  over  his  heart  to  be  a  firm  one ;  and  hence,  among 
rivals  and  adversaries,  of  whom  every  politician  finds 
plenty,  he  would  most  likely  have  stumbled  except  for 
Jefferson,  whose  confidence  was  implicit  and  at  the 
same  time  generous. 


Fixing  the  boundaries  of  the  various  Indian  tribes, 
as  well  as  of  the  great  territories  themselves,  occupied 
more  seriously  than  before  the  national  attention.  It 
was  the  President's  wish  to  reclaim  these  children  of 
nature  from  the  savage  state ;  leading  them,  if  possible, 
to  abandon  the  chase,  devote  themselves  to  civilized 
pursuits,  and  settle  in  fixed  habitations.  Spinning  and 
weaving  might,  he  thought,  be  profitably  introduced 
among  them,  also  the  tillage  of  small  farms ;  and  thus 
would  they  become  more  disposed  to  part  with  the 
large  tracts,  w7hich  to  them  had  been  mere  hunting 
grounds,  besides  gradually  fitting  themselves  to  become 
citizens  of  the  United  States.  "In  truth,"  he  wrote  in 
1803,  "tne  ultimate  point  of  rest  and  happiness  for 
them  is  to  let  our  settlements  and  theirs  meet  and  blend 
together,  to  intermix  and  become  one  people.  Incor- 


TERRITORIES  AND  THE  INDIANS     99 

porating  themselves  with  us  as  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  this  is  what  the  natural  progress  of  things  will, 
of  course,  bring  on,  and  it  will  be  better  to  promote 
than  to  retard  it." 


We  may  here  recall  some  of  the  homelier  traits  of 
Jefferson's  administration,  which,  on  the  whole,  en 
hanced  his  popularity,  while  constantly  widening  the 
chasm  between  him  and  political  precisians  of  the  old 
school. 

The  old  school  and  the  Old  World  laid  great  stress 
upon  official  dignity,  and  the  use  of  ceremonial  forms ; 
these  they  thought  essential  for  fostering  the  spirit  of 
allegiance,  which  is  akin  to  reverence,  and  requires  a 
shrine.  But  Jefferson  stripped  government  as  much  as 
possible  of  all  false  externals  and  led  from  idols  to  the 
ideal  of  a  progressive  society,  ruled  by  common  consent 
as  the  majority  might  determine,  and  obeying  its  best 
impulses.  In  that  general  progressiveness  to  the  high 
est  good,  he  saw  a  study  for  history  far  worthier  than 
in  the  strut  and  stride  of  potentates  who  borrow  false 
illusions  from  the  glare  of  a  court  life  to  make  its  am 
bitions  seem  unduly  glorious.  Things  trivial  of  them 
selves  bent,  and  sometimes  ludicrously,  to  this  standard 
of  philosophy.  First  of  all,  the  new  President  abol 
ished  levees  and  courtly  drawing-rooms,  nor  would  he 
suffer  society  at  the  capital  to  inflict  such  entertain 
ments  upon  him  for  its  own  amusement.  Departing 
still  further  from  the  example  of  the  two  previous  ad 
ministrations,  he  refused  to  have  his  birthday  known 
or  celebrated.  On  two  days  of  the  year,  New  Year's 
and  the  Fourth  of  July,  the  doors  of  the  White  House 
were  kept  open;  the  former  occasion,  which  was  the 


ioo         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

more  suitable  for  the  latitude  of  our  permanent  capi 
tal,  remaining  ever  since  its  chief  festal  day.  He  lived 
in  one  corner  of  the  unfinished  White  House,  then 
known  as  the  "Palace,"  plain  in  his  manners,  always 
accessible  to  those  who  called.  He  gave  official  din 
ners  in  excellent  style,  entertaining  public  characters 
after  the  usual  custom,  but  heedless  of  nice  questions 
of  precedence  in  seating  his  guests,  and  disposed  to 
adopt  what  was  known  as  the  "pell-mell"  arrange 
ment.  In  dress  he  was  careless,  often  slipshod,  like 
one  engrossed  in  other  matters;  combining,  too,  the 
fashions  of  an  old  and  new  era,  as  might  suit  his  own 
passing  fancy.  For  with  all  his  zeal  as  a  reformer  at 
this  late  time  of  life,  Jefferson  showed  habits,  tastes, 
and  general  methods  savoring  of  that  eighteenth  cen 
tury  conservatism  to  which  he  had  been  educated ;  and 
his  personality  was  that  of  one  who  introduced,  rather 
than  embodied,  our  modern  America^  and  modern 
politics. 

The  rustic  seclusion  of  the  new  capital  made  it,  of 
course,  the  easier  for  Jefferson  to  indulge  in  what 
might  now  be  thought  a  freakish  subversion  of  common 
forms;  besides  which  he  was  a  widower.  When  his 
married  daughters  visited  him,  he  enjoyed  sitting  on 
the  floor  and  playing  with  his  grandchildren.  Avoid 
ing,  too,  upon  principle,  all  grand  tours  and  proces 
sions,  and  travelling  modestly  between  the  Potomac 
and  Monticello  in  the  seasons  of  recess,  he  breathed 
constantly  a  social  atmosphere  redolent  of  home  and 
old  friends,  while  his  fame  went  far  and  wide  with 
out  him. 

Captivating  manners,  wide  information,  and  quick 
sympathy  with  humankind — a  book  which  he  fully 
mastered — assured  Jefferson  against  contempt.  On  all 


JEFFERSON  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE-    101 

scientific  subjects  he  talked  remarkably  well  for  an 
amateur;  geography  and  natural  philosophy  were 
among  his  favorite  studies.  His  general  scholarship 
was  remarkable  for  his  times,  and  when  a  subject  occu 
pied  his  thoughts  he  investigated  deeply.  Discursive 
in  conversation,  with  a  tendency  to  paradox,  he  im 
parted  striking  suggestions,  and  often  enthusiasm.  He 
corresponded  well  with  the  eminent  savants  of  both 
continents.  At  his  table  he  appeared  easy  and  good- 
tempered,  watchful  of  the  moods  of  his  guests,  and 
taking  care  that  the  name  of  none  should  escape  him. 
Not  vulgar,  nor  with  a  mind  which  worked  only  in 
political  grooves,  he  well  maintained,  after  his  peculiar 
fashion,  the  dignity  of  the  Presidential  office. 

The  fastidious  of  Jefferson's  time  thought  the  New 
Year's  reception  a  Saturnalia.  Odd  figures  and  odd 
dresses  were  to  be  seen  in  the  windows  and  on  the  grand 
staircase;  the  footpaths  of  the  Presidential  grounds 
were  thronged;  President's  Square  was  crowded  by  two 
o'clock  with  a  crowd  of  spectators,  white  and  black. 
The  Marine  and  Italian  bands  played  for  the  general 
entertainment.  Wine,  punch,  and  more  delicate  re 
freshments  were  provided  for  the  guests,  who  arrived 
some  on  foot  and  some  in  carriages,  all  helter-skelter. 
The  President  stood  at  the  head  of  the  reception-room 
with  his  cabinet,  his  figure  slender,  more  than  six  feet 
high,  his  step  elastic,  his  reddish  hair  turning  from 
sandy  to  gray ;  frank  and  affable  in  speech,  and  yet  self- 
possessed;  now  friendly,  now  courteous,  according  to 
the  person  he  addressed,  whom  he  generally  seemed  to 
know  by  name;  simplicity  the  great  charm  of  his  man 
ner.  Among  the  diplomatic  corps  appeared  singular 
contrasts :  the  French  Minister  was  decked  in  gold  lace ; 
the  Tunis  ambassador,  who  conversed  in  Italian,  wore 


*  i       EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 


his  silk  slippers,  turban,  and  a  robe  displaying  his  scar 
let  jacket  beneath,  which  was  embroidered  with  buttons 
of  precious  stones.  A  train  of  Indian  warriors  would 
sometimes  join  the  throng  bedecked  in  war  finery,  with 
blankets  and  deer-skin  moccasins,  feathers  on  their 
head,  and  silver  pendants  from  the  nose  and  ears. 

With  this  wholesale  hospitality,  state  dinners,  and 
the  constant  demands  upon  his  private  fortune,  Jeffer 
son  retired  from  the  Presidency  a  poor  man,  and  suf 
fered  painful  embarrassments  in  his  last  years  through 
the  guests  who  swarmed  at  his  tables.  In  personal 
habits,  nevertheless,  he  was  far  from  extravagant; 
eating  sparingly  at  the  table  and  avoiding  stimulating 
liquors.  He  kept  a  French  cook  and  liked  French 
dishes;  a  peculiarity  for  those  days  which  had  caused 
Patrick  Henry  to  denounce  him  on  the  stump  as  one 
who  "abjured  his  native  victuals."  When  first  chosen 
President  he  is  said  to  have  arranged  for  purchasing 
a  coach  and  four;  but  no  such  equipage  seems  to  have 
appeared  conspicuously,  and  a  favorite  steed  bore  him 
on  most  excursions,  private  or  official,  during  his  term 
of  office.  He  rode  splendidly,  though  a  civilian;  he 
had  always  been  fond  of  horses;  and  his  robust  health 
he  attributed  largely  to  horseback  exercise,  which  he 
pursued  regularly  to  almost  the  last  day  of  his  long 
life. 

Jefferson  did  not  improve  much  upon  Washington 
and  Adams  as  to  remaining  at  the  seat  of  government 
in  midsummer.  ''Grumble  who  will,"  he  said,  "I  will 
never  pass  those  months  on  the  tide-water."  But  Mon- 
ticello  was  at  a  moderate  distance,  and  the  public  busi 
ness  was  running  smoothly.  Nor  did  Madison  live  far 
away  in  vacation.  Respectful  addresses  from  legisla 
tures  and  corporate  bodies  received,  of  course,  the 


JEFFERSON  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     103 

attention  of  our  third  President  as  formerly ;  and  com 
mon  delegations  began  to  come,  besides,  with  their 
homely  expressions  of  good-will.  He  carefully  avoid 
ed  gift-taking,  as  well  as  nepotism;  presents  were 
refused,  excepting  a  bust  from  the  Emperor  of  Russia. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

SECOND   ADMINISTRATION    OF   THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Ninth  Congress.  March  4,  i8o5-March  3,  1807. — 
§  II.  Period  of  Tenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8o7-March  3, 
1809. 

IMPRESSMENT,  which  now  became  and  con 
tinued  the  standing  grievance  against  Great 
Britain,  was  an  indignity  to  which  no  self-re 
specting  nation  could  patiently  submit.  Loss  of  prop 
erty  will  long  be  borne,  but  the  unatoned  outrage  upon 
the  person  of  a  citizen  provokes  instant  retaliation  and 
war.  Nevertheless  the  United  States  had  shown  great 
forbearance  on  this  subject,  and  ever  since  1790  had 
sought  by  fruitless  negotiation  to  rectify  the  mischief. 
The  fundamental  right  which  England  claimed  was 
that  of  using  her  own  citizens  by  arbitrary  seizure  to 
fight  her  maritime  battles ;  and  once  a  citizen  always  a 
citizen.  At  first  her  pretension  of  reclaiming  citizens, 
once  in  allegiance,  appears  to  have  been  confined  to 
British  seamen  who  had  deserted  from  some  ship  and 
entered  the  American  service.  Gradually,  however,  it 
extended  farther,  all  British  subjects  being  claimed  and 
seized,  whether  deserters  or  otherwise.  And  yet,  in 
face  of  their  own  principles,  the  British  ministry  would 
refuse  to  discharge  an  American  seaman  settled  or  mar 
ried  in  England,  or  one  who  had  voluntarily  entered 


BRITISH    IMPRESSMENTS  105 

the  British  service.  By  right  of  the  American  Revolu 
tion  our  citizens,  formerly  British,  had  acquired  un 
questionably  as  of  right  an  independent  American  alle 
giance. 

But  it  was  not  the  real  or  pretended  right  to  impress 
British  subjects,  so  much  as  the  means  of  enforcing  that 
right,  to  which  the  United  States  took  chief  exception. 
So  far  as  this  government  was  concerned,  arrangements 
would  not  have  been  difficult  for  the  mutual  surrender 
of  deserters  upon  a  reciprocal  obligation  to  observe 
good  faith.  But  Great  Britain  consented  to  no  such 
arrangement.  She  made  no  demand  for  her  deserting 
seamen.  On  the  contrary,  she  used  force,  and  exercised 
a  discretion  of  her  own,  which,  utterly  ignoring  the 
co-sovereignty  of  the  parties,  led  of  necessity  to  the 
greatest  abuse.  British  naval  officers  would  stop  and 
overhaul  an  American  merchantman,  muster  its  pas 
sengers  and  sailors  on  deck,  and  carry  off  forcibly  all 
whom  it  might  suit  their  convenience  to  claim  as  Brit 
ish  subjects.  This  was  done  not  in  British  ports  alone, 
but  in  those  of  neutrals  and  upon  the  high  seas.  The 
interested  party  and  the  stronger  one  was  judge  of  his 
own  cause.  Sailors  were  wanted,  and  the  British  press- 
gang  laid  the  universe  under  contribution.  Hence  did 
the  abuse  of  the  impressment  principle  far  outrun 
the  principle  itself.  Thousands  of  American  natives 
were  taken  in  the  pretended  exercise  of  a  British  right 
of  search ;  foreigners,  too,  whose  language  and  personal 
appearance  showed  distinctly  that  they  were  not  Brit 
ons.  Meantime  the  remedy,  in  case  of  mistaken  seiz 
ure,  was  slow  and  by  no  means  adequate,  nor  was 
recompense  or  indemnity  afforded  for  it.  The  com 
merce  of  the  United  States  was  injured  by  the  actual 
loss  of  American  seamen  and  by  the  dread  which  kept 


106         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

others  from  exposing  themselves  to  the  peril  of  capture 
for  bloody  work  upon  an  English  frigate. 


The  conspiracy  of  Burr  now  flamed  suddenly  in  the 
sky  like  some  comet,  wholly  unexpected,  whose  coming 
seems  the  presage  of  destruction.  But  when  seen  that 
conspiracy  had  Ceased  to  be  dangerous.  The  bearing 
of  this  enterprise  upon  our  internal  politics  was  very 
slight,  except  to  strengthen  public  confidence  in  the 
energy  of  the  Executive,  and  to  cement  to  the  Union, 
as  was  highly  needful,  the  loyalty  of  our  immense  Mis 
sissippi  country.  For  the  rest,  we  may  regard  it  as  a 
phenomenal  exhibition  of  hazy  native  imperialism, 
quite  unfit  for  modern  America. 

Wilkinson  turned  against  Burr  at  the  critical  mo 
ment,  and  by  his  energetic  preparations  at  New  Orleans 
crushed  the  enterprise  in  which  he  had  been  promised 
the  second  place  of  command. 

It  only  remained  for  the  Federal  courts  to  deal  with 
the  offenders  as  they  deserved,  all  other  trials  being 
postponed  to  that  of  the  chief  conspirator.  But  here 
the  law  shielded  the  prisoners.  No  conviction  of  trea 
son  was  possible  under  our  constitution  unless  some 
overt  act  could  be  proved  on  the  testimony  of  two  wit 
nesses.  Burr's  trial  at  Richmond  collapsed  upon  a  rul 
ing  of  Marshall,  the  Chief  Justice,  to  the  effect  that 
the  enlistment  and  assembling  of  men  at  Blennerhas- 
sett's  Island  showed  no  overt  act  of  treason ;  that  even 
if  it  did,  Burr's  agency  was  not  manifest ;  and  that  the 
overt  act  must  first  be  established  before  testimony  of 
Burr's  conduct  or  declarations  elsewhere  was  admis 
sible.  Burr's  second  trial,  which  was  for  simple  mis 
demeanor,  failed  upon  a  point  of  jurisdiction;  and 


BURR'S  CONSPIRACY  107 

though  Burr  and  Blennerhassett  were  afterward  held 
for  trial  in  the  district  of  Ohio  upon  this  less  heinous 
charge,  the  government  abandoned  their  cause,  and  the 
other  indictments  were  dismissed.  The  chief  recollec 
tion  of  this  famous  prosecution  is  the  forensic  triumph 
achieved  by  one  of  the  counsel  on  the  government  side, 
the  eloquent  William  Wirt,  whose  fervid  description 
of  Blennerhassett's  island  home — the  ideal  of  a  liter 
ary  retreat,  such  as  through  life  haunted  his  own  imagi 
nation, — still  retains  a  place  among  our  oratorical  ex 
tracts. 

To  Blennerhassett  Burr  was  indeed  the  serpent 
invading  Eden.  A  charming  home  was  ruined,  a  lovely 
family  scattered.  Soldiers  committed  pillage;  credi 
tors  attached  the  estate ;  the  dwelling,  a  quaint  wooden 
house,  with  curved  wings  and  a  running  piazza,  was 
burned  to  the  ground.  Unsuccessful  in  speculations 
by  which  he  hoped  to  repair  his  fortune,  the  outcast 
vainly  sought  public  office  in  Canada,  and  afterwards 
in  Ireland,  and  died  at  last  on  his  native  soil  penniless 
and  heart-broken.  To  thousands  of  travellers  floating 
down  the  Ohio  River  past  Marietta  and  this  lonely 
island,  the  deserted  rendezvous  of  treason,  has  the 
pathetic  tale  of  poor  Blennerhassett  been  made  familiar. 

Nor,  though  released  from  legal  durance,  did  the 
chief  offender  escape  the  Nemesis  of  public  condemna 
tion.  Less  an  object  of  compassion  than  Blennerhas 
sett,  Burr  wandered  abroad  a  few  years,  living  upon 
scanty  remittances  from  personal  friends;  but  in  1812 
he  returned  stealthily  to  New  York  City,  confirmed  in 
sensual  and  impecunious  habits,  and  there  resided  until 
his  death.  None  of  his  former  high  acquaintances 
either  molesting  or  greeting  him,  he  slunk  back  into 
professional  practice,  confined  for  the  rest  of  his  life, 


io8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

with  all  his  astuteness,  to  the  grade  of  a  pettifogger. 
His  only  child,  to  whom  he  had  promised  a  diadem, 
the  beloved  Theodosia,  lost  at  sea,  and  his  direct  line 
extinct,  Burr  was  left  without  an  endearing  tie  in  the 
world ;  yet  a  stoic  still,  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
life,  he  lived  to  the  age  of  fourscore,  the  obscurity  of 
his  Bohemian  existence  varied  only  by  the  scandal  of  a 
marriage  at  seventy-eight  to  a  rich  widow,  who  soon 
after  separated  from  him.  Over  the  fair  sex  Burr's 
fascination  was  retained  to  the  last ;  one  woman,  strange 
to  his  illustrious  kindred,  nursed  him  in  his  final  sick 
ness,  and  another  placed  a  simple  block  of  marble  to 
mark  his  unhonored  grave. 


The  historical  act  of  this  closing  session  of  Congress 
(1806-7)  was  tnat  which  gave  the  African  slave  trade 
its  quietus,  our  government  thus  availing  itself  of  the 
right  of  constitutional  prohibition  upon  the  first  per 
mitted  opportunity.  Congress  did  much  by  shutting 
this  outer  door  upon  the  slave  trade ;  but,  unfortunately, 
inner  doors  were  still  left  open.  Upon  the  great  na 
tional  error  of  this  era  regarding  domestic  slavery  we 
have  elsewhere  dwelt:  that  the  system  already  woven 
into  the  social  fabric  of  the  coast  was  permitted  to  be 
come  a  pattern  for  the  new  interior  States.  Jefferson's 
accustomed  prescience  here  failed  him.  Moved  by  the 
discontent  which  the  French  inhabitants  of  Orleans  Ter 
ritory  manifested  because  of  the  present  act,  he  thought 
it  not  unwise  to  let  them  receive  slaves  from  the  States ; 
for,  as  he  argued,  by  thus  dividing  the  evil  we  lessen 
its  danger.  The  law  of  natural  increase  contradicts 
such  a  theory;  and  the  danger,  growing  with  this 
Union,  consisted  most  of  all  in  fostering  the  ambition 


SLAVE   TRADE   ABOLISHED         109 

of  slaveholders  to  populate  new  States  in  their  interest, 
and  in  allowing  them  to  gain  such  an  accession  of 
wealth  and  power  as  to  rivet  their  institution  securely 
upon  the  broadening  nation. 

Properly  viewed,  the  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave 
trade  meant  to  England  the  consummation  of  a  humane 
national  policy,  but  to  the  United  States  scarcely  more 
than  its  initiation.  On  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  how 
ever,  philanthropy  now  reposed  upon  its  laurels;  and 
with  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade,  a  policy  to  which 
the  United  States,  with  Great  Britain's  co-operation, 
ever  after  adhered,  which  was  favored  presently  by 
the  commercial  situation  and  in  later  years  by  more 
efficacious  restraints,  the  first  anti-slavery  movement 
in  America  subsided.  Of  that  movement  the  head 
quarters  were  at  Philadelphia,  and  Pennsylvania  had 
been  the  chief  agitating  State  in  the  Union.  The  last 
State  convert  to  emancipation  had  now  been  made,  and 
upon  no  remaining  issue  which  the  slave  problem  pre 
sented  in  America  could  the  general  sentiment  be 
strongly  aroused  or  united.  To  limit  slavery  en 
croachment  upon  the  national  domain  was  not  in  this 
era  attempted.  The  drab  coats  and  yearly  meetings 
fix  no  longer  the  public  gaze;  in  1807  the  abolition 
convention  at  Philadelphia  resolved  to  hold  only  tri 
ennial  meetings  in  the  future;  and  even  those  were 
presently  discontinued  as  the  societies  died  out  which 
had  supplied  delegates. 


Looking  back  through  the  vista  of  years  upon  that 
terrible  encounter  of  war  which  shook  the  whole  civil 
ized  world,  we  cannot  but  admire  England's  steadfast 
courage  in  opposing  the  great  conqueror  and  autocrat 


no         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  the  age.  We  see  her  beating  him  off  from  the  ocean, 
and  wheeling  round  the  land  in  her  solitary  flight  to 
spy  out  some  spot  on  which  she  could  alight  to  give 
battle;  the  talisman  of  royalty  in  her  beak,  and  spell 
bound,  despairing  sovereigns  below.  If  not  the  world's 
last  hope,  the  " fast-anchored  isle"  had,  at  all  events, 
become  the  last  bulwark  of  royal  Europe,  and  but  for 
British  constancy  the  balance  of  power  in  the  Old 
World  would  have  been  lost.  The  false  glamour  has 
now  disappeared  from  the  name  of  Napoleon.  He  was 
not  the  scourge  of  kings  so  much  as  the  enemy  of  man 
kind.  As  liberty's  vicegerent  he  glittered  only  by  the 
insignia  of  wrhich  he  had  robbed  her  temple;  the  glory 
of  his  arms  redounded  not  to  his  countrymen,  not  to 
France,  but  to  his  own  imperial  gratification;  he  over 
turned  thrones,  not  like  Attila  in  disdain  of  them,  but 
in  order  that  he  might  supplant  legitimacy  by  illegiti 
macy,  and  pile  costly  pomp  upon  pomp.  Against  this 
consummate  warrior  and  organizer  of  oppression  Eng 
land  stood  bravely,  when  all  else  was  ruin.  Corrupt, 
greedy,  unscrupulous  of  means,  she  pushed,  neverthe 
less,  defiantly  on.  The  younger  Pitt  himself,  cold  and 
haughty  as  he  showed  himself  to  America,  and  con 
scientious  blunderer  in  his  management  of  foreign  rela 
tions,  moves  our  compassion  when  we  think  of  him 
crushed  by  Austerlitz,  and  dying  of  a  broken  heart, 
which  refused  to  surrender.  The  iron  of  that  character 
without  its  genius  and  virtue,  but  with  a  caustic  humor 
which  alleviated  better  the  burdens  of  office,  was  in 
Canning,  Pitt's  disciple.  But  British  antipathy  to  Na 
poleon  did  not  originate  in  Napoleon's  usurpations;  it 
commenced  with  the  Revolution  that  gave  him  the  op 
portunities  of  greatness,  writh  deep-seated  national 
rivalries  for  which  the  Corsican  could  not  be  blamed. 


NAPOLEON  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      in 

As  First  Citizen  of  France  Bonaparte's  claims  were 
indisputable;  but  England  had  challenged  them,  de 
testing  French  Republic  and  Empire  alike.  And  hence 
the  contest,  ceasing  and  then  recommencing  with  such 
violence  that  amity  between  the  principals  was  impos 
sible,  affected  America  with  peculiar  sensations.  We 
were  a  rock  which  each  wished  to  hurl  at  the  other,— 
a  convenient  missile,  and  no  more.  One  principal  was 
an  old  foe,  the  other  a  false  friend;  with  neither's 
object  had  we  really  cause  for  active  sympathy.  Peace 
was  our  interest,  and  peace  we  sought  sincerely.  In 
pursuing  one  another,  too,  the  contestants  were  like  the 
genie  and  princess  who  practised  magic;  if  one  took 
the  shape  of  a  scorpion  the  other  became  a  serpent,  and 
woe  to  the  spectator  who  advanced  too  near.  The 
United  States  was  bound  by  every  instinct  to  stand 
aside  from  such  a  contention,  to  leave  the  dynasties  of 
Europe  to  themselves,  and  maintain  a  just  neutrality; 
to  keep  at  once  and  forever  detached  from  the  politics 
and  ambitions  of  the  Old  World.  If  forced  from  that 
position,  reason  and  passion  must  have  prompted  a  re 
sistance  on  our  part  to  that  belligerent  from  whose 
inflictions  we  chiefly  suffered.  The  measure  of  such 
resistance  would  naturally  be  the  redress  of  our  griev 
ances,  independently  of  such  incidental  advantage  as 
the  other  belligerent  might  derive.  Even  the  Euro 
pean  sovereignties  which  were  swallowed  into  this  mad 
vortex,  in  which  they  struggled  for  dear  life,  found 
themselves  swirling  about  in  combination  and  recom 
bination,  catching  now  at  a  French  alliance,  now  at  an 
English.  Into  that  vortex  it  was  not  fit  that  this  repub 
lic  should  enter  without  the  gravest  necessity. 

This  trilogy  of  successive  neutral  prohibitions — the 
Berlin  Decree,  the  British  Orders  in  Council,  and  the 


ii2         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Milan  Decree — must  henceforth  supply  the  situations 
which  brought  this  country  eventually  upon  the  stage  of 
the  great  European  war.  And  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  United  States  for  the  next  five  years  following  the 
spring  of  1807  turned  upon  the  constant  endeavor  of 
this  nation  to  make  England  or  France,  one  or  both, 
relax  its  unjust  prohibitions,  or  else  suffer  the  conse 
quences  of  America's  resentment. 


Embargo  must  be  contemplated  as  an  experiment, 
somewhat  like  that  of  amputating  a  limb  in  order  to 
save  the  life.  The  patient  recognizes  well  what  he  has 
lost,  but  not  the  loss  which  was  prevented.  In  this 
grave  and  sudden  emergency  the  question  for  the 
United  States  was  not  whether  to  avoid  or  make  a  sac 
rifice,  but  whether  one  sacrifice  might  not  be  better 
borne,  for  the  time  being,  than  another.  With  belliger 
ent  decrees  against  us  utterly  reckless  of  our  rights, 
diametrically  opposed  to  one  another,  and  universally 
operative,  our  neutral  commerce  must  have  been  con 
ducted  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis;  if  we  carried 
for  England,  France  would  confiscate;  if  for  France, 
England  would  confiscate.  The  one  exacted  tribute 
from  us,  like  the  Grand  Turk,  and  insisted  upon  search ; 
the  other  punished  by  forfeiture  if  we  permitted  search 
or  paid  that  tribute;  trade  with  the  British  Isles  was  un 
der  the  ban  of  France,  trade  with  France  and  her  allies 
under  the  ban  of  Great  Britain.  King  George,  to  be 
sure,  had  the  more  formidable  navy  to  enforce  such 
decrees,  but  Napoleon's  means  of  punishment  for  non- 
compliance  were  ample,  now  that  the  Continent  was  in 
his  coils.  Further  commerce  abroad  at  this  juncture 
meant,  therefore,  a  defiant  assertion  of  neutral  rights,  or 


JEFFERSON'S  EMBARGO  113 

else  such  submission  to  one  adversary  as  would  certainly 
provoke  the  active  resentment  of  the  other,  and  draw 
us  unwillingly  from  our  normal  state  of  neutrality ;  and, 
in  either  case,  we  risked  the  sacrifice  of  our  commerce, 
together  with  the  greater  sacrifice  of  a  war  for  which 
we  were  wholly  unprepared. 

But,  it  was  asked,  and  not  without  relevancy,  why 
not  leave  American  commerce  to  solve  the  difficulty  for 
itself?  Why  not  let  merchants  arm  their  vessels  or 
otherwise  encounter  the  perils  at  their  own  discretion  ? 
To  this  the  answer  was,  first,  because  a  nation  cannot 
safely  or  honorably  commit  the  cause  of  all  to  the  dis 
cretion  of  a  class;  next,  because  this  government's  re 
sponsibility  to  England  and  France,  as  well  as  to  its 
own  citizens,  was  not  to  be  evaded  for  calamities  which 
might  occur  should  belligerent  orders  be  disregarded 
and  new  penalties  and  new  retaliations  be  invited ;  and, 
once  again,  for  the  reason  that  our  merchants  who 
wished  to  be  let  alone  were  less  likely  to  maintain 
American  rights  and  honor  than  to  shuffle  American 
trade  into  the  protection  of  Great  Britain,  and  accept 
an  issue  with  her  enemies.  Here,  as  before,  would 
government  risk  an  immediate  embroilment  and  war; 
chance,  instead  of  policy,  determining  which  belligerent 
should  be  our  foe. 

That  zeal  for  one's  country  which  we  denominate 
patriotism,  and  which  prompts  the  individual  to  sacri 
fice  in  order  that  the  state  may  be  served,  sinks  too 
often  in  our  present  age  into  the  heartless  calculation 
of  material  advantages  which  government  protection 
affords  to  the  individual,  as  though  this  were  all  that 
the  individual  need  concern  himself  about.  Under 
Jefferson  our  American  commerce,  whose  chief  seat 
was  New  England  and  New  York,  had  enjoyed  seven 


n4         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

years  of  unparalleled  prosperity;  but  affluence  had  in 
creased  its  cupidity.  It  was  now  protuberant,  bulky, 
a  mistress  instead  of  a  handmaid;  a  just  pride,  and  yet 
a  constant  source  of  anxiety.  It  dragged  a  young 
people  after  it  into  foreign  difficulties,  with  which  they 
were  unprepared  to  cope.  It  required  a  navy  larger 
than  the  sense  of  the  nation  would  warrant,  and  fail 
ing  of  this,  got  callous  to  British  search  and  kidnap 
ping,  like  a  woman  who  seeks  gain  from  some  mascu 
line  profession  while  exposing  herself  to  indignities 
from  men.  Neutral  trade,  moreover,  from  steering  so 
long  through  the  belligerent  restrictions  of  Europe,  had 
grown  to  be  sly  and  cunning  of  late;  finding  subter 
fuges,  risking  captures,  using  the  neutral  flag  to  cover 
forbidden  property,  and  constantly  setting  the  wit  of 
the  fox  to  elude  the  lion.  Embargo,  as  a  protective 
measure,  was  not  easily  drawn  about  the  vessels  of  such 
a  mercantile  community.  First,  the  law  was  evaded 
boldly,  so  as  to  carry  on  an  illicit  trade  despite  its  risks ; 
next  cautiously,  so  as  to  sell  American  ships  to  Britain 
and  put  American  cargoes  under  the  British  flag.  Em 
bargo,  in  short,  could  only  be  maintained  by  force,  and 
a  forcible  embargo  for  any  considerable  length  of  time 
meant  rebellion  at  home  for  the  sake  of  maintaining 
peace  abroad. 

As  a  purely  temporary  measure  embargo  was  a  fair 
choice  among  difficulties,  nor  a  choice,  in  the  present 
instance,  wholly  unforeseen.  It  gave  our  people  time 
for  reflection ;  it  kept  our  vessels  and  cargoes  from 
spoliation,  with  only  the  present  sacrifice  of  profitable 
employment  and  an  early  market.  The  owners  of  per 
ishable  commodities  like  bread-stuffs  suffered,  to  be 
sure,  more  than  those  whose  lumber,  tobacco,  or  rice 
might  be  readily  stored  and  preserved ;  ships  themselves 


JEFFERSON'S   EMBARGO  115 

might  rot,  if  long  disused ;  and  yet,  on  the  whole,  such 
a  stoppage  of  trade,  if  brief,  affected  with  no  great  par 
tiality  all  classes  and  sections  of  the  country.  An  em 
bargo  had  been  laid  in  1793,  while  Washington  was 
President,  under  the  inducement  of  Eastern  Federalists, 
and  with  a  similar  reliance  upon  the  Executive  discre 
tion.  And  the  present  embargo  received  the  general 
approbation  of  State  legislatures  upon  its  first  adop 
tion;  it  united  public  sentiment  as  no  other  measure 
would  have  done.  But  embargo,  rightly  considered, 
was  no  more  than  a  temporary  detention.  Jefferson 
himself  conceded  it  to  be  the  universal  opinion  that  war 
would  be  preferable  to  the  long  continuance  of  such  an 
inhibition.  This,  he  thought,  was  our  last  card,  short 
of  war;  and  unless  a  European  peace  soon  ensued,  or 
one  of  the  powers  repealed  its  obnoxious  decrees,  em 
bargo  was  worse  than  war.  He  thought  the  time  gained 
by  it  important,  and  undertook,  on  the  strength  of  such 
a  measure,  to  procure  a  retraction  from  either  France 
or  England.  Embargo  must  have  a  limit,  and  in  his 
mind  the  last  limit  would  be  the  reassembling  of  Con 
gress,  or,  perhaps,  the  close  of  1808. 

History  must  admit,  that  so  far  as  embargo  was  used 
as  a  weapon  for  coercing  Europe,  it  utterly  disappointed 
expectation.  The  sacrifice  required  at  home,  in  order 
to  produce  any  positive  impression  abroad,  proved  of 
itself  fatal  in  practice  to  the  long  endurance  of  any 
such  experiment.  If  England  bled,  or  France,  under 
the  operation,  the  United  States  bled  faster.  Jefferson 
miscalculated  in  supposing  that  the  European  struggle 
had  nearly  culminated,  or  that  the  nerveless  Continen 
tal  powers  could  organize  an  armed  neutrality  to  pro 
tect  substantially  their  own  interests.  Instead  of  a 
sinking,  vacillating,  debt-ridden  England,  he  found  a 


n6         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

stubborn  England  making  capital  of  what  it  owed,  its 
prodigious  resources  slowly  uncoiling.  He  found  a  new 
ministry,  hard  as  flint,  with  Parliament  to  brace  it, 
bending  with  redoubled  energies  to  the  war,  heedless 
of  Liverpool  remonstrances,  marching  the  red-coats  to 
break  up  meetings  and  suppress  riots  in  Manchester 
and  those  other  manufacturing  towns  where  embargo 
and  the  Continental  exclusion  were  most  heavily  felt. 
Next  to  making  American  commerce  tributary  to  the 
British  exchequer,  the  aim  of  those  who  framed  the 
Orders  in  Council  had  been  to  drive  it  altogether  from 
the  ocean,  so  that  British  merchants  might  absorb  the 
maritime  trade  once  more  to  themselves.  This  latter 
alternative  embargo  directly  favored.  Our  non-im 
portation  act,  which  had  now  gone  into  effect  against 
Great  Britain,  made  it  still  less  an  object  for  that  coun 
try  to  court  a  repeal  of  the  embargo.  By  way,  too,  of 
partial  offset  to  the  loss  of  our  market,  a  new  one  was 
opened  to  England  by  the  outbreaks  in  Spain.  And  as 
if  to  exasperate  us  to  the  utmost,  Orders  in  Council 
were  repealed  as  to  that  nation,  but  not  in  favor  of  the 
United  States. 

After  all,  in  politics  there  are  no  positive  maxims; 
or,  rather,  political  maxims  must  yield  to  circum 
stances,  and  to  the  common  sense  of  each  new  exigency. 
That  common  sense  must  be,  in  fine,  the  conserving 
force  under  a  constitutional  mechanism  so  complicated 
as  ours.  The  fundamentals  in  which  American  politi 
cal  parties  differ  remain  a  standing  source  of  perplexity 
to  monarchies;  and  yet  of  those  differences,  whether 
reason  or  prejudice  guides,  we  all  partake.  In  one  re 
spect,  at  least,  the  majority  of  1809  proved  wiser  than 
that  of  1/99;  less  obstinate  and  imperious  when  public 
opinion  was  pronounced,  they  quickly  abandoned  the 


DOWNFALL  OF  EMBARGO         117 

untenable,  and  made  the  sacrifice  of  pride  much  lighter 
by  making  it  in  good  season. 

The  downfall  of  this  forcible  embargo  we  must  at 
tribute  most  of  all  to  the  panic  which  rebellious  New 
England  produced  at  Washington.  "Eggs  of  sedition" 
was  the  angry  epithet  that  Governor  Lincoln  bestowed 
upon  the  insubordinate  town  meetings  of  his  own  State. 
How  the  resolutions  of  those  New  England  towns 
pelted  and  pattered  upon  the  bewildered  administration 
Jefferson  never  forgot. 


Notwithstanding  the  embargo  convulsion,  loving 
and  respectful  tributes  flowed  in  upon  Jefferson  at  this 
time  from  every  quarter  of  the  Union  except  the  East 
ern  ;  from  State  legislatures,  and  from  religious  and 
political  societies.  These  tributes  he  severally  acknowl 
edged;  but  his  only  farewell  address  was  embodied  in 
the  opening  message  to  Congress,  which  he  meant  for 
his  valedictory,  feigning  himself  already,  after  a  suc 
cessor's  election,  at  the  end  of  a  term  for  which  he 
declined  to  be  further  responsible;  a  fiction  which,  un 
fortunately  for  the  symmetry  of  our  national  system, 
no  constitutional  amendment  has  yet  made  a  fact. 

Undoubtedly  this  winter's  trial  was  the  sorest  of  Jef 
ferson's  life.  His  experiment  failed,  and  with  it  hopes 
of  peace  and  development  he  had  dearly  cherished.  He 
had  sunk  in  public  estimation  as  the  wizard,  long  infal 
lible,  who  fails  palpably  at  length  to  perform  the  ex 
pected  miracle.  Like  the  old  Archbishop  of  Gil  Bias, 
he  was  conscious  and  sensitive;  he  loved  applause,  and 
applause  had  confirmed  him  in  his  opinions.  He  left 
the  cares  of  office  in  March,  weary,  disappointed,  thor 
oughly  glad  to  escape  them. 


n8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

But  Jefferson  was  too  much  of  a  philosopher  to  take 
this  last  little  vicissitude  long  to  heart,  too  closely 
bound  to  his  successors  not  to  influence  them,  and  too 
deeply  rooted  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  not  to  regain 
popularity  the  moment  there  was  chance  for  another 
Presidential  comparison.  Randolph  once  likened  this 
second  term  to  Pharaoh's  lean  kine,  which  swallowed 
the  fat  ones ;  and  yet,  to  correct  the  simile,  it  was  nearly 
seven  years  of  plenty  to  one  of  famine.  But  that  year 
of  famine  was  his  last,  and  it  is  the  final  exit  which 
gives  glory  to  an  administration,  or  denies  it.  In  the 
five  more  years  of  misery  which  ensued,  thousands 
learned  to  look  back  with  fond  regret  upon  the  earlier 
prosperous  era  of  peace  and  Jefferson ;  and  so,  too,  on 
ward  through  the  hard  years  of  recuperation  which  fol 
lowed  the  inflated  prosperity  of  an  exhausting  though 
successful  war. 


Spared  for  a  long  and  healthful  old  age,  in  spite  of 
increasing  money  anxieties — for  he  was  not  the  least  of 
personal  sufferers  by  his  own  embargo  policy — Jeffer 
son  aided  the  country  and  his  successor,  still,  by  his 
inspiration  and  counsel ;  but  the  firm,  yet  delicate,  touch 
of  his  leadership  was  missed  through  the  years  of  storm 
and  stress  which  now  followed.  We  were  soon  to  be 
carried  inevitably  into  the  most  stupendous  interna 
tional  contest,  and  the  most  embarrassing,  that  modern 
civilization  ever  saw.  Embargo,  as  Jefferson  himself 
intended  it,  would  have  been  the  precursor  of  a  hostile 
resistance  to  tyrannous  European  decrees;  his  own 
party  failed  him,  however,  and  the  opportunity  passed 
for  carrying  that  stringent  precautionary  measure  to 
such  a  point.  Though  posterity  is  far  from  doing  him 


RETIREMENT   OF  JEFFERSON      119 


justice,  in  that  singular  experiment,  it  has  struck  away 
half  the  justification  for  the  virulence  of  contemporary 
opponents,  by  conceding  his  thorough  honesty  of  pur 
pose.  And  with  all  the  pecuniary  pinch  of  distress  that 
embargo  occasioned,  we  were  far  better  united,  as  a 
nation,  in  sentiment  and  resources,  for  immediate  war 
and  war  preparations,  than  we  found  ourselves  three 
years  later.  In  shaping  our  course,  as  neutral  between 
France  and  Great  Britain,  it  was  necessary  that  we 
should  conform  to  new  conditions,  and  shape  and 
steer  by  the  sequence  of  belligerent  hostilities.  It  was 
not  vacillation  so  much,  that  a  Republican  adminstra- 
tion  displayed  in  these  difficult  years,  but  rather  a  tack 
ing  about  as  the  foreign  winds  shifted.  Who  will  hold 
the  helm  to  one  point  unswervingly,  in  so  dread  a  crisis  ? 
And  what  ruler  of  an  American  people  can  be  seriously 
reproached,  who,  before  plunging  into  the  dread  calami 
ties  of  war,  is  disposed  to  cast  about,  to  experiment,  to 
test  to  the  utmost  the  expedients  of  peace  and  philan 
thropy  ? 


On  the  pressing  measures  of  the  next  sixteen  years, 
and  more  especially  through  Madison's  immediate 
Presidency,  Jefferson,  though  in  retirement,  was  a  free 
and  confidential  counsellor.  The  relations,  in  fact, 
which  bound  together  in  perfect  harmony  Jefferson  and 
Madison,  through  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  public 
activity  in  their  joint  lives,  is  without  a  parallel  in  pop 
ular  government;  so  well  fitted  by  differences  of  age, 
talent,  experience,  and  temperament,  was  the  one  to 
direct  and  the  other  to  follow  gracefully;  Jefferson 
with  pen  or  voice  tingling  each  expression  with  the  deep 
feeling  which  glowed  within  him;  while  Madison 


120         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 


showed  a  sobriety  of  manner,  with  occasionally  a  sly 
and  quiet  humor,  shrank  from  all  personalities,  and 
linked  calm  premises  to  conclusions,  as  though  human 
passions  would  bend  implicitly  to  reason.  The  one  wel 
comed,  no  doubt,  the  restraints  of  judicious  counsel, 
and  the  other  that  invigoration  which  comes  in  glowing 
moments  from  prophetic  and  confident  intuition. 

America's  greatest  civilian,  for  the  rest  of  his  life, — 
an  honor  which  John  Adams  deserved  to  share  with 
him  more  fully  than  his  fellow-citizens  cared  to  per 
mit, — Jefferson  in  his  final  retirement  corresponded 
with  the  greatest  citizens  of  two  hemispheres;  and 
years  after  he  had  left  official  station  Monticello,  his 
home,  was  overrun  with  pilgrims,  from  the  illustrious 
to  the  impertinent.  In  the  latest  years  of  his  life  he 
devoted  himself  earnestly  to  the  work  of  higher  educa 
tion  in  his  native  State  and  neighborhood.  The  Uni 
versity  of  Virginia,  "the  darling  child"  of  Jefferson's 
old  age,  was  the  fruition  of  schemes  early  cherished ; 
and  in  the  epitaph  which  he  drew  up  for  his  own  monu 
ment,  "Father"  of  this  University  was  the  third  of  the 
great  titles  which  he  claimed  from  posterity.  In  that 
last  and  most  solemn  appeal  for  fame  and  recogni 
tion,  one  may  perceive  that  Jefferson's  most  enduring 
pride  was  not  in  political  or  party  triumphs,  nor  in  the 
honors  of  public  station,  nor  even  in  that  supreme  of 
our  political  titles,  President  of  the  United  States,  but 
in  the  calmer  authorship  of  great  works  for  the  general 
benefit  of  posterity  and  his  fellow-men. 

It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  statesmen  so  intel 
lectual  and  penetrating  as  the  foremost  among  Jeffer 
son's  political  adversaries  should  not  have  marked  cor 
rectly  the  chief  blemishes  of  his  character.  Blemishes 
there  doubtless  were.  As  connected  with  our  national 


CHARACTER  OF  JEFFERSON       121 

history  and  that  of  great  political  parties,  however,  he 
is  set,  like  a  box  within  a  box,  by  the  sequence  of  events, 
showing  the  worse  exterior  first.  We  see  him  a  pessi 
mist  out  of  authority ;  then  an  optimist  in  the  plenitude 
of  authority ;  pulling  down  the  great  in  the  former  in 
stance,  in  order  that  the  humble  might  rise  to  their 
share  of  public  influence,  but  in  the  latter  mainly  occu 
pied  with  solving  those  benevolent  human  problems 
which  the  success  of  such  a  plan  next  forced  upon  him. 
Hence  he  seemed  interested  and  pushing  at  one  time, 
but  singularly  disinterested  and  high-minded  at  an 
other.  He  had  seen  his  political  opportunity,  organized 
his  forces,  and  risen;  but  motive  power  consisted  in 
the  expansive  force  of  the  ideas  with  which  he  had  put 
himself  in  sympathy,  like  that  which  sets  a  steam  engine 
to  work.  While  leader  of  a  party  on  the  aggressive, 
seeking  the  stronghold  of  power,  Jefferson  was  wily, 
insinuating,  supple,  ready  in  resources,  one  who  studied 
the  weaknesses  of  opponents  to  profit  by  them,  and  who, 
in  cultivating  the  common  votes  for  his  side,  assidu 
ously,  but  not  meanly,  displayed  the  art  in  which  they 
were  most  deficient;  in  short,  a  man  of  management 
and  persuasion.  Over  a  patrician  party  he  gave  ple 
beians  an  advantage  at  the  polls,  which  no  change  of 
party  names  and  issues  has  ever  reversed.  And  though, 
as  chief  magistrate,  giving  himself  unreservedly  and 
with  remarkable  success  to  inspiring  the  widest  confi 
dence,  so  that  Republicanism  might  stand  for  the  whole 
American  people,  Jefferson  was  ever  after  cumbered  by 
his  own  peculiar  methods,  which,  tried  upon  the  great 
European  powers  afterwards,  resulted  in  the  best  dip 
lomatic  conquest  and  the  worst  diplomatic  defeat  of  his 
eight  years'  administration.  Jefferson's  faults  of  char 
acter :  dissimulation,  intrigue,  adroit  management,  a  cer- 


122         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tain  art  of  drawing  the  chair  from  under  a  foe  instead  of 
striking  him  down,  and  a  disposition  to  exonerate  him 
self  from  blame  under  all  circumstances,  and  even 
though  employing  others  to  detract,  the  careful  reader 
has  already  detected.  In  political  methods  he  showed 
more  of  the  French  than  the  English  school, — plausible 
and  diplomatic,  instead  of  curt  and  offensive.  But  he 
was  sound  in  native  faith;  sincere  and  attached  with 
regard  to  all  followers ;  remarkably  tolerant  except  tow 
ards  such  as  had  provoked  his  revenge,  and  those  he 
spared  not  on  opportunity.  His  innermost  wish  was  to 
be  friends  with  all,  friend  of  the  people,  and  the  love  of 
popularity  disposed  him  to  temporize.  He  was  an 
idealist,  but  enough  of  a  statesman  besides  to  under 
stand  that  mankind  are  won  more  by  facts  than  theo 
ries.  In  general  direction  he  never  swerved ;  he  led  by 
flights,  drawing  the  multitude  after  him,  not  soaring 
as  the  lark  above  them.  To  such  a  statesman  the  best 
attainable  for  the  times  is  the  best ;  he  errs  with  his  age, 
but  he  advances  it. 

Contemporaries  charged  Jefferson  with  being  pusil 
lanimous,  and  asserted  that  his  talent  was  a  knack  of 
shunning  danger.  For  assault  and  battery,  for  organ 
izing  brute  force,  for  facing  bullets,  and  trampling 
carelessly  through  carnage,  this  sensitive  and  sympa 
thetic  nature  was  doubtless  ill  adapted;  but  as  for  the 
fibre  of  moral  courage,  the  Declaration  and  '76  speak 
to  all  time.  The  man  who  challenged  his  king  in  youth, 
and  risked  with  compatriots  a  traitor's  doom,  endured 
contumely  through  the  political  excitements  of  1799 
without  flinching.  In  the  Barbary  war,  in  the  suppres 
sion  of  Burr's  conspiracy,  in  the  assertion  of  American 
rights  against  foreign  powers, — nay,  in  embargo  itself, 
—he  showed  himself  a  strong  Executive,  constant  and 


CHARACTER  OF  JEFFERSON       123 

firm.  Yet  we  shall  admit  that  for  marshalling  a  nation 
in  battle  array  Jefferson  compared  unfavorably  with 
Washington,  or  even,  perhaps,  with  Adams.  He  had 
not  the  military  instinct.  He  could  arouse  but  not  lead 
to  action.  He  clung  to  persuasion  and  philosophy. 
War  leaders  may  carry  discipline  into  the  cabinet,  but 
peace  leaders  find  their  philanthropy  out  of  place  in 
the  camp.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  tenacity 
with  which  Jefferson  for  years  pursued  his  futile  expe 
dient  of  conquering  without  showing  fight  or  warlike 
resources ;  determined  not  to  yield  to  foreign  injustice, 
but  ruined  in  private  estate  partly  because  of  the  course 
he  took  to  withstand  it. 


Jefferson's  original  character  has  most  powerfully 
contributed  in  forming  that  of  his  country.  Liberal 
education,  liberal  politics,  liberal  religion ;  a  free  press ; 
America  for  Americans;  faith  in  the  simple  arts  of 
peace,  in  science  and  material  progress,  in  popular  rule, 
in  honesty,  in  government  economies ;  no  king,  no  caste, 
room  for  the  oppressed  of  all  climes ;  hostility  to  monop 
olies,  the  divorce  of  government  from  banks,  from  pet 
corporations,  and  from  every  form  of  paternalism ;  for 
eign  friendship  and  intercourse  without  foreign  alli 
ances;  the  gradual  propagation  of  republican  ideas  on 
this  western  hemisphere  while  gently  forcing  Europe 
out;  meagre  force  establishments,  meagre  preparations 
for  war  in  time  of  peace,  a  leaning  toward  militia  and 
State  volunteers  for  defence  in  emergencies  rather  than 
dependence  upon  national  troops  and  praetorian  guards ; 
faith  in  the  indefinite  expansion  of  this  Union  and  of 
the  practice  of  self-government  upon  this  continent: 
all  this,  though  others  inculcated  some  of  these  maxims 


i24         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

too,  is  Jeffersonism, — for  Jefferson's  inspiration 
propagated  the  faith, — and  Jeffersonism  is  modern 
America.*  The  States  as  a  reliance  against  central 
consolidation  American  experience  approves;  and  only 
in  the  sentiment  of  nationality  and  stronger  national 
establishments  has  the  Union  outgrown  Jefferson,  or 
rather  the  Jefferson  of  1799.  Jefferson  had  the  en 
thusiasm  of  the  future,  and  knew  how  to  communicate 
it.  Ideas  impress  most  forcibly  through  the  individual 
who  stands  for  them ;  and  in  Jefferson  was  personified, 
for  the  first  time,  the  American  idea  in  its  full  and  con 
fident  expression  against  prejudice,  against  timid  con 
servatism,  against  historical  experience,  the  cherished 
traditions  of  Europe,  the  French  Revolution,  and  the 
armed  potentates  of  the  world. 

Jefferson,  therefore,  though  no  warrior,  had  the 
highest  essentials  of  a  philosophic  statesman, — lofty 
conviction,  earnestness  of  conviction,  endurance  of  con 
viction,  skill  in  impressing  his  conviction.  The  can 
did,  who  differ  from  him,  allow  the  broad  philanthropy 
of  his  policy ;  they  allow  it  in  spite  of  visions  and  falla 
cies,  and  although  pacified  Indians  might  raise  the  tom 
ahawk  once  more  or  peacemakers  shoulder  the  musket. 
He  truly  worked  to  deserve  the  good  will  of  mankind 
by  doing  mankind  good.  Peace,  not  pride,  was  the 
fundamental  of  his  system ;  the  less  of  government  the 
better;  live  and  let  live;  trust  the  good  of  man's  nature 

*  The  germ  of  the  "Monroe  doctrine"  of  later  development  is 
thus  early  seen  in  Jefferson's  corespondence,  in  view  of  the  Span 
ish  uprising  against  Bonaparte,  and  its  possible  effects  upon  Cuba 
and  Mexico,  which  he  is  well  satisfied  to  leave  in  their  present 
dependence.  "We  consider  their  interests  and  ours  as  the  same, 
and  that  the  object  of  both  must  be  to  exclude  all  European 
influence  in  this  hemisphere."  Jefferson's  Works,  October  29, 
1808. 


CHARACTER  OF  JEFFERSON       125 

rather  than  repress  the  evil;  give  the  freest  possible 
impulse  to  the  bounding  spirit  of  liberty,  and  confide  in 
popular  tendencies,  as  at  least  the  most  likely  to  be 
honest. 

One  striking  trait  in  Jefferson  was  his  serenity  of 
temper.  He  believed  little  could  be  gained  by  angry 
discussion.  He  was  no  orator;  he  seldom  committed 
himself  passionately  to  paper,  though  always  feelingly ; 
but  in  conversation  and  personal  intercourse  his  good 
humor  was  contagious.  He  would  turn  from  politics 
to  science  and  the  crops,  and  while  perplexed  to  the 
utmost  in  the  embargo  summer  of  1808  he  was  corre 
sponding  with  his  friends  upon  the  beauties  of  the 
French  metrical  system.  "I  have  never,"  he  truly  said, 
"suffered  political  opinion  to  affect  my  private  friend 
ships;  some  have  deserted  me  on  this  account,  but  I 
do  not  desert  others." 

To  confirm  this  last  remark  two  memorable  instances 
are  in  point,  which,  dating  near  Jefferson's  retirement 
from  office,  may  here  be  mentioned.  The  impetuous 
but  chivalric  Monroe,  who  had  been  distanced  for  the 
Presidency  by  a  neighbor  and  fellow-Virginian,  less 
popular,  perhaps,  but  more  deserving,  betrayed  for  the 
moment  anger,  not  with  the  latter  alone,  but  with  their 
common  chief;  but  Jefferson,  who  might  well  have  re 
buked,  soothed  him  like  an  affectionate  father,  per 
suading  him  of  his  own  firm  friendship,  and  thus  grad 
ually  brought  about  that  full  concert  and  reconciliation 
between  Monroe  and  Madison  which  became  so  auspi 
cious  to  the  nation  and  to  the  permanent  welfare  of 
each.  And  once  again,  by  laying  hold  of  opportuni 
ties,  while  in  and  out  of  office,  Jefferson  rescued  the 
perishing  fellowship  of  his  life-long  friend,  John 
Adams ;  so  that  the  country  long  enjoyed  the  glad  spec- 


126         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tacle  of  their  two  surviving  ex-Presidents  and  Revolu 
tionary  sages  united  in  brotherly  ties  and  in  the 
substantial  support  of  their  next  successor's  policy 
throughout  a  most  perilous  national  era.  An  intimacy 
of  great  and  patriotic  souls  more  touching  was  never 
seen.  Hand  in  hand  these  gray-haired  sires  of  '76  went 
down  the  declivity  of  life  together,  discoursing  as  they 
grew  old  of  things  past  and  to  come,  this  world  and  the 
next ;  and  through  those  dread  gates  which  never  swing 
backward  they  passed  out  into  broad  eternity,  lit,  as 
they  vanished,  by  the  rays  of  the  same  independence 
sun. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA  IN 


N"  EVER  in  modern  times  had  government  come 
to  exert  such  positive  influence  with  so  little 
of  coercion  as  in  this  republic  of  the  United 
States  during  the  latter  part  of  Jefferson's  administra 
tion,  and  immediately  preceding  the  Embargo.  Those 
are  happy  years  to  look  back  upon,  happiest  perhaps 
in  the  educational  aspect  they  afford  and  in  a  con 
scious  broadening  of  the  national  spirit.  A  parting 
radiance,  indeed,  lingers  about  this  second  administra 
tion  of  Jefferson,  to  be  remembered  like  that  of  the  last 
sunset  before  a  storm  at  sea  ;  it  was  a  miniature  golden 
age  of  American  history. 

What,  Europe  might  have  asked,  was  this  ambitious 
young  neutral  across  the  seas,  confident  through  inex 
perience,  which  had  so  boldly  seized  the  carrying 
trade  and  now  demanded  the  right  to  prosper  by  it,  en 
forcing  its  argument  with  neither  bribes  and  obeisance 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  fleets  and  armies  on  the  other, 
but  as  if  to  persuade  the  jealous  to  be  just  ?  To  answer 
such  an  inquiry,  let  us  suspend  our  historical  narrative 
for  a  single  chapter. 


The  uniform  tendency  of  political  government  in 
these  United  States  has  been  that  the  legislature  ab 
sorbs  the  chief  functions,  and  encroaches  upon  the 


128         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

other  departments.  Corruption  and  fitfulness  are  the 
great  dangers  to  which  an  American  legislature  is  ex 
posed;  its  organized  capacity  for  good  or  evil  makes 
individuals  ambitious  to  control  it  for  their  private 
ends;  and  hence,  fittingly,  the  constitutional  require 
ment  in  all  the  States  at  this  early  period,  except  Ver 
mont,  that  the  legislature  should  consist  of  two  houses ; 
a  provision  which,  to  Pennsylvania  and  Georgia,  was 
the  fruit  of  experience,  and  which  Vermont  likewise 
adopted  after  a  time.  But  as  between  these  two  houses 
no  such  solid  basis  of  distinction  could  be  contrived 
as  gave  symmetry  to  the  British  Parliament  and  the 
American  Congress.  They  who  sought  to  make  the 
smaller  house  represent  aristocracy,  land,  or  wealth, 
found  the  idea  too  unpopular  to  prevail  long;  and,  ac 
cordingly,  our  State  legislature,  with  its  two  branches, 
now  stood  for  little  more  than  a  double  friction  upon 
law-making,  the  component  of  popular  constituencies, 
one  larger,  the  other  smaller,  with,  perhaps,  a  difference 
in  modes  of  choice  or  the  length  of  the  term  of  mem 
bership.  A  few  local  attempts  were  not  wanting  to 
base  the  Senate  apportionment  according  to  the  yield 
of  taxation,  and  the  House  according  to  numbers.  The 
New  England  plan  of  electing  senators  by  counties,  and 
representatives  by  towns,  at  this  time  prevalent,  made, 
perhaps,  the  soundest  distinction  practicable;  but  even 
that  distinction  has  since  been  generally  abandoned. 

As  for  the  right  of  popular  suffrage  in  the  choice  of 
executive  or  legislature,  this  had  by  no  means  been 
freely  conceded  in  America  as  early  as  1809;  while  the 
fundamental  idea  of  the  Federal  Constitution  was  to 
abide  by  the  discretion  of  the  several  States  in  this 
respect  so  far  as  national  elections  were  concerned. 
They  who  claim  that  "taxation  without  representation" 


STATE   CONSTITUTIONS  129 

was  the  political  wrong  of  the  mother  country  against 
which  the  American  Colonies  rebelled,  are  in  error  if 
by  this  they  intend  that  an  individual  or  thoroughly 
popular  representation  was  sought  in  Parliament,  and 
not  rather  the  representation  of  colonies  or  whole  com 
munities  by  some  convenient  sort  of  delegation.  Unless 
Massachusetts  as  a  colony  was  represented  in  laying 
the  tax,  Massachusetts  as  a  colony  ought  not  to  be 
taxed ;  but  that  no  one  in  Massachusetts  should  be  taxed 
unless  he  had  a  voice  in  electing  such  a  representative 
would  have  been  thought  an  absurd  claim  in  1775. 
Rather,  perhaps,  should  it  be  said  that  these  colonies 
claimed  the  exclusive  right  of  levying  their  own  local 
taxes  through  their  own  local  legislatures.  The  essen 
tial  principle  of  deputy  representation,  however,  such 
as  prevailed  in  our  own  Continental  Congress,  and  was 
claimed  from  Parliament  as  a  fundamental  right  of 
British  colonists  liable  to  taxation,  is  as  old  at  least  as 
the  Amphictyonic  Council;  whereas  popular  represen 
tation,  or  that  conferred  by  poll  suffrage,  is  wholly 
modern,  and  to  this  day  finds  certain  limitations  im 
posed  of  sex,  age,  and  condition.  State  legislatures 
chose  their  annual  deputies  to  the  Continental  Con 
gress  ;  the  Continental  Congress  made  requisitions  upon 
the  State,  and  apportioned  the  several  contributions. 
Much  farther  removed  from  universal  suffrage  and 
mathematical  representation,  we  may  furthermore  well 
conceive,  was  the  first  quarter  of  this  century  than  the 
fourth.  As  for  Great  Britain  at  this  time,  none  of  whose 
colonies  could  ever  be  regarded  as  on  a  par  with  the 
home  population,  rotten  boroughs  ruled  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  French  legislative  corps  was  but  an 
emperor's  echo,  like  the  senate  of  the  Caesars.  Our 
American  States  had,  perhaps,  the  purest  representa- 


130         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

live  systems  in  the  world,  both  in  theory  and  practice ; 
and  yet  poll  suffrage,  a  democratic  idea,  was  coming 
very  slowly  into  favor;  the  older  constitutions  con 
ferred  the  franchise  on  property  alone,  many  of  them 
adhering  furthermore  to  the  British  idea  that  only 
landholders  should  vote.  In  South  Carolina  a  peculiar 
arrangement  of  election  districts  gave  the  wealthy  and 
aristocratic  the  decided  preponderance;  in  scarcely 
more  than  one-third  of  the  States,  and  these  chiefly  the 
new  ones,  all  agricultural  in  interests,  had  the  property 
qualification  been  so  far  sunk  that  manhood  suffrage 
really  prevailed;  though  in  that  direction,  no  doubt, 
was  the  sweep  of  the  general  current. 


Two  salutary  constraints  upon  legislative  tyranny 
under  this  American  system  were  the  veto  power  and 
the  limitations  of  a  written  constitution.  By  means 
of  the  former,  an  executive,  State  or  National,  could 
defeat  any  new  law  upon  which  two-thirds  of  both 
houses  (or,  under  some  State  charters,  a  majority  in 
each  house  of  all  the  members  elected),  failed  to  unite 
against  him ;  under  the  latter  the  proper  court  of  appeal 
might  thwart  by  the  machinery  of  justice  any  act  which 
contravened  in  its  solemn  opinion  the  body  of  funda 
mental  law.  Political  controversies  and  infringements. 
State  and  Federal,  might  hence  cause  courts  of  differ 
ing  jurisdictions  to  collide  with  legislature  or  Con 
gress  or  with  one  another;  but  should  blind  judges 
encroach  thus  upon  popular  liberty,  these  were  likely 
to  suffer  in  the  end,  so  resolute  was  the  popular  will. 
Strange  and  abstruse  as  all  these  constitutional  inqui 
ries  might  seem  to  a  British  barrister,  whose  Parliament, 
it  was  said,  could  do  anything  except  to  make  a  woman 


STATE  BILLS  OF  RIGHTS  131 

a  man,  or  a  man  a  woman,  the  British  courts,  favored 
by  the  greater  ponderosity  of  legislative  machinery,  by 
their  own  independence,  and  the  general  respect  Eng 
lishmen  entertain  for  unwritten  law,  built  up  a  juris 
prudence  of  precedents  in  this  era  more  boldly  than 
could  have  been  possible  under  the  American  system, 
where  all  power  was  subdivided  and  the  public  vigilance 
incessant.  For  American  courts  expounded  statutes 
and  considered  their  constitutionality,  from  a  State  or 
a  Federal  point  of  view,  while  British  courts  moulded 
national  statutes  by  construing  them  at  pleasure. 


Our  State  constitutions,  republican  in  form  and  es 
sence,  breathed  humane  sentiments,  expressed  in  the  so- 
called  Bill  of  Rights,  which  made  a  feature  of  each  fun 
damental  charter  from  the  days  of  the  Revolution. 
Whether  the  language  were  always  adequate  or  not, 
the  ideas  thus  inculcated  have  crystallized  into  an  Amer 
ican  creed;  the  Federal  Constitution  with  its  earlier 
amendments  copying  from  the  older  States,  the 
younger  States  copying  from  both;  and  some  of  the 
phrases  originating  in  the  British  Bill  of  Rights  of 
1689.  Freedom  of  the  press  was  enjoined;  freedom 
of  religion,  freedom  of  the  person,  immunity  from  arbi 
trary  search  and  arrest,  the  sanctity  of  trial  by  jury; 
excessive  bail  was  prohibited,  all  punishments  dispro- 
portioned  to  the  offence,  standing  armies,  bribery, 
hereditary  and  perhaps  double  offices,  titles  of  nobility, 
civil  pensions,  confiscations  and  penalties  entailed  upon 
innocent  offspring.  States  differed,  however,  in  some 
of  the  lesser  details.  The  Roman  idea  of  censorship 
and  the  Jewish  of  a  seventh  year  of  jubilee,  might 
be  traced  in  some  of  our  local  charters,  notably  that  of 


132         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Vermont,  which  favored  the  plan  of  revising  the  State 
constitution  every  seven  years ;  but  the  later  rule  in  the 
States  conforms  more  closely  to  that  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  so  as  to  permit  rather  of  special  constitu 
tional  amendments  or  a  constitutional  convention 
whenever  it  may  seem  desirable  to  alter  the  fundamen 
tal  law. 

Freedom  of  the  individual,  a  gift  which  the  most 
polished  nations  of  antiquity  failed  to  confer  upon 
their  citizens,  and  which  in  the  highest  type  only  a 
spirit  of  Christianity  supplies,  was  the  essential  spirit 
of  the  American  constitutions.  The  Grecian  and  Ro 
man  citizen  lived  for  the  State,  the  American  State 
lives  for  the  citizen. 


By  far  the  greatest  interest  of  these  United  States 
in  1809,  with  respect  to  the  number  of  inhabitants  en 
gaged,  was  the  agricultural;  a  circumstance  which 
doubtless  enhanced  Jefferson's  popularity,  when  others 
assailed  him  as  an  enemy  of  commerce  for  agriculture's 
sake.  Our  chief  exports  were  agricultural,  according 
to  the  best  estimates ;  while  as  concerned  the  necessaries 
of  life  the  American  people  were  essentially  self-sup 
porting.  Cotton,  so  insignificant  a  product  in  1791, 
was  king  already,  while  the  world's  market  stood  open ; 
the  crop  exported  in  1810  being  worth  over  $15,000,- 
ooo,  and  South  Carolina  rinding  this  her  most  valuable 
export. 

The  manufacturing  industries  of  the  United 
States  had  steadily  grown,  and  so  far  as  the  imperfect 
statistics  of  the  period  are  trustworthy  we  may  reckon 
the  manufactures  of  wood  and  leather  as  the  most  ade 
quate  of  all,  at  this  time,  to  domestic  consumption. 


AMERICAN   INDUSTRIES  133 

These,  however,  were  exceeded  presently  in  value  by 
manufactures  of  cotton  and  wool,  which  received  an 
immense  stimulus  by  those  disturbances  which  about 
this  time  checked  their  British  importation.  Iron  man 
ufactures  constituted  the  next  great  industry  in  impor 
tance  after  these  others.  Of  wood  and  leather  manu 
factures  our  imports  had  become  less  valuable  than  the 
exports;  carriages,  household  furniture,  and  the  great 
item  of  ship-building  being  included  under  the  former 
head.  The  history  of  American  cotton  culture  and  of 
the  cotton-mills  is  deeply  interwoven  with  the  Ameri 
can  politics  of  this  nineteenth  century.  Its  narrative 
commences  somewhat  farther  back  and  almost  simulta 
neously  with  that  of  our  constitutional  Union. 

American  commerce,  as  our  narrative  has  shown, 
rose  to  such  prosperity  during  the  European  war  as  to 
have  excited  already  the  jealousy  of  the  contending 
powers,  whose  restrictions  Congress  had  to  meet  by  cor 
responding  measures  of  retaliation,  which  led  ulti 
mately  to  war  with  Great  Britain.  New  England  was, 
of  course,  the  great  maritime  section;  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  entire  tonnage  of  the  Union  belonged  to 
Massachusetts  alone;  and  in  Boston,  the  chief  empo 
rium  of  commerce,  signs  of  luxury  appeared  already 
in  an  increasing  taste  for  comfort  and  the  fine  arts. 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore  were  busy 
seaports.  Of  the  coasting  trade  New  England's  share 
was  large;  and  the  toilsome  sons  of  Nantucket  and 
Marblehead,  foremost  in  the  ocean  fisheries,  caught  cod 
off  the  Grand  Bank  or  pursued  the  shy  whale  to  distant 
oceans. 

The  whale  fishery  was  a  sort  of  speculation;  and  in 
view  of  French  and  British  decrees  against  neutral 
trade,  our  whole  foreign  trade  by  the  seas  was 


134         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

taking  on  the  same  hue.  Great  ventures,  great 
risks,  for  the  sake  of  great  profits,  is  in  fact 
the  national  American  tendency  in  business  as  com 
pared  with  the  colonial ;  so  sanguine  is  the  American 
temperament  under  its  liberal  conditions  of  life  and 
so  eager  are  all  to  get  rich  quickly  and  rise  in  the  world. 
Upon  this  vulgar  development,  landed  capitalists  of  the 
Washington  and  Jefferson  type,  who  clung  to  old- 
fashioned  integrity  and  simplicity  of  manners,  and  had 
been  brought  up  as  easy  farmers,  looked  with  mingled 
disdain  and  alarm.  The  funding  system  first  plunged 
our  people  in  extensive  speculations,  which  shook  all 
the  chief  centres  of  population ;  but  the  land  mania 
afterwards  produced  still  greater  convulsions.  The 
feverish  zeal  with  which  waste  tracts  were  bought  and 
sold  in  the  United  States  towards  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  seemed  a  strange  spectacle  to  for 
eigners;  and  ere  this  its  worst  symptoms  had  disap 
peared  through  the  modifications  of  government  policy 
in  transfers  of  the  public  domain,  and  the  bitter  lessons 
of  personal  experience.  The  manufacturing  frenzy 
was  next  to  come,  as  incidental,  however,  to  the  devel 
opment  of  a  vast  legitimate  enterprise,  in  which  native 
capital  became  interested  of  necessity;  and  this  broke 
out  about  1810  in  the  Middle  States,  spreading  west 
ward  to  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  and  southward  to  Mary 
land  and  Virginia.  Solidly  as  New  England  and 
Pennsylvania  manufacturers  had  supported  one  another 
during  the  period  of  our  first  Congress,  in  order  that 
their  moderate  business  might  be  protected,  they  had 
since  drawn  apart ;  the  commercial  interest  became  de 
cidedly  paramount  at  the  East,  and  latterly  Massachu 
setts  appears  to  have  allowed  both  Pennsylvania  and 
New  York  to  outdistance  her,  until,  this  European 


THE  JEFFERSON   ERA  135 

trade  inevitably  declining,  her  adventurous  sons  at 
length  took  the  same  infection,  diverted  their  capital 
into  the  new  channels,  and  made  Massachusetts  very 
speedily  in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  of  manu 
facturing  States.  When  the  leading  Eastern  interests 
thus  changed,  we  shall  find  that  Eastern  politics 
changed  also. 

The  love  of  novelty  and  change  is  inseparable  from 
such  a  government.  A  new  custom  is  quickly  stero- 
typed  into  law  before  the  old  one  has  proved  outworn. 
Men  are  prone  to  consider  the  latest  the  best;  their 
own  age  superior  to  all  preceding,  and  the  constant 
tendency  of  all  things  to  perfection ;  truths  by  no  means 
evident,  if  history  teaches  anything.  On  the  contrary, 
the  generation  which  gains  in  one  point  may  lose  in 
others.  This  Jefferson  era,  by  no  means  the  age  of 
luxurious  or  material  perfection,  was  a  happy  one,  not 
withstanding,  in  setting  the  high  opportunities  of  acqui 
sition  before  all ;  and  the  American  people  were  blessed 
at  this  age  in  reaching  out  towards  the  golden  mean 
of  prosperity  while  stimulated  to  still  greater  exertion. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

FIRST  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  MADISON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Eleventh  Congress.  March  4,  iSog-March  3,  1811. 
— §11.  Period  of  Twelfth  Congress.  March  4,  i8n-March 
3,  1813. 

PARALYTIC  and  dastardly  as  the  new  foreign 
policy  which  Congress  now  dictated  might  ap 
pear,  it  fitted  the  emergency  of  present  events 
better,  perhaps,  than  a  bold  one  would  have  done.  At 
home  and  throughout  the  United  States  it 
deepened  the  conviction  that  a  Republican 
administration  was  sincerely  impartial  in  sentiment  as 
between  the  two  belligerents,  England  and  France. 
With  all  their  inaptitude  for  war  or  ambitious  enter 
prise  the  Jefferson  leaders  certainly  carried  the  hearts 
and  hopes  of  the  American  people;  they  might  trail 
the  national  standard,  but  it  was  in  their  sure  keeping. 
Centralizers  in  theory,  the  Federalists,  who  still  claimed 
the  name  of  national  statesmen,  were  growing  to  be  dis 
integrators  in  fact;  for  they  clung  too  closely  to  tra 
ditions  and  to  the  inexpansive  Union  of  the  Old  Thir 
teen.  More  positive,  also,  in  pride  of  intellect,  their  ten 
dency  was  now  too  much  to  non-resistance,  or  for  re 
sistance  on  England's  side,  to  suit  the  temper  of  the 
times;  for  Americans  evidently  regarded  England 
as  the  chief  European  aggressor,  and  only  showed  a 


REPUBLICAN   PARTY  TRUSTED     137 

better  fighting  spirit  than  fighting  capacity.  The  Re 
publican  party,  on  the  other  hand,  which,  partly  in  self- 
defence,  had  begun  by  unduly  exalting  State  rights, 
was  now,  through  its  closer  and  steadier  sympathy  with 
the  nation's  practical  development,  and  by  reason  of  the 
gradual  decline  of  all  European  bias,  acquiring  the 
more  decided  national  character.  That  party  alone 
kept  headway  in  the  new  States,  and  with  the  back 
woods  settlers,  who  furnished  to  fastidious  statesmen 
of  the  old  school  and  of  States  long  since  populated, 
the  semblance  of  a  Tartar  population ;  and  whose  utter 
want  of  affiliation  with  Federalism  in  return,  gave  posi 
tive  assurance  that  the  old  party  could  never  rise  to 
national  predominance  again. 


The  repeal  of  our  Non-intercourse  Act  had  yet  to 
produce  its  effect  upon  Europe;  and,  strange  to  say, 
when  it  became  known,  the  ignoble  statute  of  1810,  by 
which  Congress  seemed  to  surrender  neutral  rights  at 
discretion,  accomplished,  with  reference  to  the  belliger 
ents,  what  firmer  measures  had  sought  in  vain.  Ceas 
ing  to  balance  justly  between  England  and  France,  the 
neutral  now  dropped  into  the  arms  of  the  former,  co- 
quettishly  hinting  that  the  latter  might  recall  her.  That 
hint  was  not  lost  upon  the  quick  Napoleon. 

Madison  and  his  Cabinet,  knowing  only  the  Cadore 
letter,  accepted  the  French  assurance  in  good  faith,  as 
they  were  justified  in  doing.  For,  at  a  certain  point 
in  public  intercourse,  either  the  word  of  a  potentate 
must  be  taken  as  a  pledge,  or  international  law  has  no 
security  at  all.  Any  relief,  moreover,  from  this  aim 
less  and  imbecile  drift  of  foreign  relations  was  to  be 
welcomed.  It  remained,  therefore,  for  Madison's  gov- 


138         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ernment  to  summon  Great  Britain  to  repeal  her  own 
edicts  against  neutral  commerce  within  three  months, 
as  the  act  provided,  or  else  to  suffer  non-intercourse  to 
revive  against  her  alone.  Here  was  the  turning-point 
in  American  relations.  Our  administration  wanted  no 
war,  but  to  escape  an  intolerable  dilemma,  and  have 
but  one  enemy  at  a  time.  But  Napoleon's  deceitful 
pretensions  were  less  of  a  barrier  to  confidence  than  the 
blunt  and  contemptuous  incivility  of  the  British  minis 
try.  No  flattering  ambiguities  were  furnished  in  that 
quarter.  Neither  the  equal  opportunities  which  the  act 
of  May  offered,  nor  the  imminent  revival  of  our  non 
importation  restraints  under  Bonaparte's  protection, 
moved  the  Perceval  Cabinet.  They  had  made  no  inde 
pendent  offer  to  repeal  injurious  decrees.  They  did 
not  thwart  Napoleon's  new  designs  by  recalling  Orders 
in  Council,  even  with  the  reservation  they  might  prop 
erly  have  employed  that  his  revocation  of  decrees  should 
be  honestly  fulfilled ;  a  course  of  procedure  which  would 
have  rescued  England's  honor  and  our  own,  and  held 
the  Emperor  by  a  double  pledge.  They  did  not  interro 
gate  for  themselves  whether  the  Cadore  announcement, 
which  appeared  final  and  positive  enough  upon  its  face, 
so  as  to  deprive  Great  Britain  of  plausible  ground  for 
maintaining  longer  the  present  neutral  system,  was  a 
snare  and  delusion.  But  taunting  the  Emperor  to  the 
utmost,  they  assumed  that  before  England  need  move 
a  hair's-breadth  the  United  States  were  bound  to  ex 
tort  a  continuous  performance  of  Napoleon's  undertak 
ing  for  some  indefinite  period ;  all  this  in  fundamental 
disregard  of  that  legislation  upon  which  the  Emperor 
himself  had  relied,  and  by  whose  tenor  a  genuine  revo 
cation  was  the  essential  fact ;  and,  in  a  word,  so  as  to 
require  us  to  impeach  Napoleon's  veracity  to  his  face, 


TWELFTH  CONGRESS  ASSEMBLES  139 

and  confess  that  King  George  and  not    he    could    be 
trusted. 


Three  days  before  the  Tippecanoe  battle  was  fought, 
whose  tidings  reached  Washington  early  in  December, 
the  Twelfth  Congress  was  seen  assembling,  lgIT 
in  obedience  to  the  President's  proclamation,  Noven^er4. 
a  month  before  the  usual  time.  That  proclamation 
was  ominous  of  war,  but  still  more  so  were  the 
changes  which  the  growing  war  sentiment  of  a  year 
had  wrought  in  the  composition  of  that  body. 

The  most  remarkable  change  of  all  was  seen  in  the 
new  tone  of  Republicanism  in  Congress  and  the  new 
leadership  of  the  party.  As  for  the  House,  which  fixed 
the  public  gaze  more  constantly,  moderate,  non-resis 
tant  Republicans  had  disappeared,  and  the  war-hawks 
were  now  in  the  ascendant.  Jefferson  and  peace  were 
already  reckoned  with  the  past ;  even  Madison  and  Gal- 
latin  might  soon  be  transferred  to  the  retired  list. 
Young  America  now  found  expression  in  that  popular 
body.  States  of  later  date  than  the  Convention  of  1787 
demanded  war ;  and  ardent  men,  who  were  babes  when 
the  Revolution  was  fought,  pushed  boldly  to  the  front 
and  assumed  command. 

That  the  House  had  passed  out  of  the  control  of 
temporizers  and  the  Old  Thirteen  was  revealed  on  the 
first  ballot  for  Speaker,  when  Henry  Clay  received 
75  votes  against  38  for  William  W.  Bibb,  of  Georgia, 
the  peace  candidate,  and  3  scattering  votes  for  Macon. 
"Who  is  Clay?"  asked  the  country,  confusing  the 
Speaker  thus  selected  with  a  Virginia  member  of  that 
name;  and  the  press  responded  that  he  was  a  new  man, 
of  talents  and  eloquence,  quite  popular,  who  appeared 


EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 


to  preside  impartially.  So  much  for  a  three  years' 
record  at  this  epoch  in  the  United  States  Senate,  where 
owl-like  seniority  blinked  down  impetuous  youth,  until 
the  young  men  now  and  presently  appearing  in  the 
House  became  transferred  thither,  and  made  it  at  a 
later  epoch  the  great  arena  of  national  debate.  Henry 
Clay  had  served  in  the  Senate  in  Burr's  day  for  a  short 
period,  and  then,  returning  after  a  long  absence,  in 
1810,  to  fill  a  vacancy,  he  had  recently  made  himself 
conspicuous  by  espousing  protective  measures,  and  help 
ing  destroy  the  National  Bank.  He  was  one  who,  pro 
duced  amid  adverse  surroundings  in  an  old  State, 
gained  richness  of  growth  by  being  early  transplanted  ; 
a  Virginian  by  birth,  the  son  of  a  Baptist  clergyman, 
and  left  an  orphan  and  destitute  in  infancy.  The  bright 
mill-boy  of  the  "Slashes"  gained  the  first  rudiments  of 
learning  from  a  rude  district  school,  worked  his  way  to 
the  bar  as  a  clerical  drudge,  and  then,  removing  from 
Richmond  to  the  new  State  of  Kentucky,  rose  rapidly 
in  fame  as  a  criminal  lawyer,  and  thence  came  naturally 
into  public  life  on  a  broadening  arena.  Rashly  confi 
dent,  perhaps,  in  youth,  Clay  had  a  capacious  intellect, 
and  learned  greatly  and  gradually  by  experience;  he 
combined,  moreover,  the  generous  honor  of  the  Old 
Dominion  with  the  Western  dash  and  faith  in  a  bound 
less  national  development.  The  secret  of  his  power  lay, 
however,  in  the  inherited  gift  of  persuading  others,  in 
his  mastery  of  the  American  heart,  which  he  swayed 
while  swaying  with  it:  first,  by  his  eloquence,  full  of 
bold  imagery,  whose  vehemence  shamed  the  timid  and 
roused  the  vigorous;  next,  by  a  skilful  management  of 
men  with  different  proclivities,  whom  he  drew  together 
by  a  thrill  of  personal  sympathy.  It  was  an  art  that  he 
constantly  cultivated  to  remember  faces  he  had  once 


CLAY  AND   CALHOUN  141 

met,  and  recall  each  name.  A  free  liver,  he  would  play 
cards  and  sport  far  into  the  night,  reading  thus  the 
hearts  of  his  compeers,  while  statesmen  abstemious  and 
industrious,  like  the  younger  Adams,  measured  out 
their  slumbers  in  order  to  be  up  with  the  morrow's 
sun  and  kindle  the  study  fire.  Clay's  oratory  may  have 
burned  out  with  the  inspiring  occasion;  his  legislative 
compromises  may  have  poulticed  more  irritations  than 
they  healed;  but  as  a  representative  of  national  ideas 
and  national  self-assertion  against  Europe,  as  states 
man,  legislator,  negotiator,  Clay  now  became  for  forty 
years  a  remarkable  figure  in  American  politics.  His 
accession  to  the  Speakership  was  of  itself  a  conspicuous 
event.  Feeble  hesitancy  lost  its  cling  on  current  events. 
From  the  moment  this  tall,  slender  son  of  Kentucky, 
with  long  brown  hair,  blue  and  flashing  eyes,  large 
mouth,  peaked  nose,  and  shaved  face,  mounted  the 
steps  and  took  the  gavel  into  his  hand,  Quincy  and 
Randolph  had  a  foeman  worthy  of  them;  this  House 
of  Congress  the  popular  leader  whom  two  Presidents 
had  sought  in  vain;  and  the  country  a  foreign 
policy  the  most  spirited  and  inspiring,  if  not  the 
wisest. 

It  was  Calhoun's  response  to  Randolph  which  pro 
duced  the  chief  effect  in  debate,  because  of  a  striking 
contrast  in  the  matter  of  his  remarks  and  a  persuasive 
and  dignified  manner  of  utterance.  This  grave  and 
handsome  youth  showed  in  his  maiden  speech  before 
Congress,  when  scarcely  thirty,  that  mastery  of  subtle 
and  captivating  logic,  that  ingenuity  in  presenting 
statements  and  that  generalizing  disposition,  which  in 
stated  him  in  after  years  as  the  founder  of  a  new  polit 
ical  school.  Here  he  laid  it  down  as  a  fair  principle 
of  conduct,  applicable  to  nations  as  to  individuals,  to 


142         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

repel  a  first  insult,  and  thus  command  the  respect,  if  not 
the  fear,  of  the  assailant.  War,  should  it  ensue,  was 
in  the  present  case  justifiable  and  necessary.  "The 
extent,  duration,  and  character  of  the  injuries  re 
ceived,"  he  continued,  "the  failure  of  those  peaceable 
means  heretofore  resorted  to  for  the  redress  of  our 
wrongs,  is  my  proof  that  it  is  necessary.  Why  should 
I  mention  the  impressment  of  our  seamen;  depreda 
tions  on  every  branch  of  our  commerce,  including  the 
direct  export  trade,  continued  for  years,  and  made  un 
der  laws  which  professedly  undertake  to  regulate  our 
trade  with  other  nations;  negotiation  resorted  to  time 
after  time  till  it  became  hopeless;  the  restrictive  sys 
tems  persisted  in  to  avoid  war  and  in  the  vain  expecta 
tion  of  returning  justice?  The  evil  still  grows,  and  in 
each  succeeding  year  swells  in  extent  and  pretension 
beyond  the  preceding.  The  question,  even  in  the  opin 
ion  and  admission  of  our  opponents,  is  reduced  to  this 
single  point :  which  shall  we  do,  abandon  or  defend 
our  own  commercial  and  maritime  rights  and  the  per 
sonal  liberties  of  our  citizens  in  exercising  them  ?  These 
rights  are  essentially  attacked,  and  war  is  the  only 
means  of  redress.  The  gentleman  from  Virginia  has 
suggested  none,  unless  we  consider  the  whole  of  his 
speech  as  recommending  patient  and  resigned  submis 
sion  as  the  best  remedy.  Sir,  which  alternative  this 
House  ought  to  sustain  is  not  for  me  to  say.  I  hope 
the  decision  is  made  already  by  a  higher  authority  than 
the  voice  of  any  man.  It  is  not  for  the  human  tongue 
to  instil  the  sense  of  independence  and  honor.  This 
is  the  work  of  nature, — a  generous  nature  that  disdains 
tame  submission  to  wrongs.  This  part  of  the  subject 
is  so  imposing  as  to  enforce  silence  even  on  the  gentle- 


WAR   PARTY   IN   CONGRESS         143 

man  from  Virginia.     He  dared  not  deny  his  country's 
wrongs  or  vindicate  the  conduct  of  her  enemy." 


All  things  hurried  now  so  rapidly  to  war  that  the 
President  had  either  to  lead  or  be  left  behind.  Amiable 
though  he  was  and  a  skilful  tactician,  and  earnest,  too, 
in  dealing  with  these  formidable  difficulties  which 
neither  France  nor  England  would  make  lighter,  Madi 
son  had  not  the  energy  and  decision  requisite  either  for 
inspiring  or  sustaining  the  public  at  this  grave  crisis. 
The  imperious  majority  in  the  House  grew  impatient 
while  he  vacillated.  His  Cabinet,  on  the  whole,  was 
more  prudent  than  daring. 

The  war  party  in  Congress,  with  Clay  at  their  head, 
and  popular  enthusiasm  cheering  them  on,  resolved  to 
bring  the  Executive  to  the  point.  The  time  approached 
for  nominating  the  next  President  in  caucus.  They 
laid  the  anti-British  programme  they  had  arranged  be 
fore  Madison  and  his  Cabinet.  This  programme  con 
templated  a  short  embargo  to  be  followed  by  war.  It 
is  related  that  Madison  acceded  to  the  plan,  or  rather 
pledged  himself  to  recommend  war,  for  the  sake  of  se 
curing  his  renomination  at  their  hands,  their  threat  be 
ing  that  unless  he  did  so  they  should  drop  him.  But  all 
that  history  can  positively  assert  is  that  Madison  pur 
sued  such  a  programme,  step  by  step,  and  that  no  nomi 
nating  caucus  was  held  until  he  had  quite  committed 
himself.  Prudent  as  an  administrator,  pacific  and  just 
on  general  principles,  conscious  of  our  inadequate  re 
sources,  and  most  of  all  distrusting  Napoleon's  good 
faith  and  resenting  the  failure  of  that  belligerent  war 
rior  to  give  the  United  States  some  explicit  assurance 


144         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

which  would  have  put  Great  Britain  so  clearly  in  the 
wrong,  that  we  might  confidently  call  upon  her  to  repeal 
or  fight,  Madison  had  kept  the  contingency  of  war  all 
the  time  in  view,  and  was  not  disposed  to  take  more 
than  his  share  of  responsibility  to  prevent  it. 

"Rushing  headlong  into  difficulties,  with  little  calcu 
lation  of  the  means,  and  little  concern  for  the  conse 
quences."  This  was  the  harshest  censure  to  which  the 
administration  and  Congress  had  justly  exposed  them 
selves  by  embarking  in  the  present  contest  against 
Great  Britain.  All  other  strictures  made  by  the  peace 
men  of  that  day  may  be  dismissed  as  unworthy  of  the 
rhetorical  phrasing  they  employed.  The  United  States 
may  or  may  not  have  been  duped  into  a  war  with  Eng 
land,  but  the  provocation  was  strong,  and  war  or  dis 
honorable  submission  was  the  only  visible  alternative 
which  Britain  had  left  us.  Napoleon  was  but  the 
finger-post  in  this  business, — no  ally  whatever.  War 
we  chose  with  England  because  it  was  needful  to  choose 
one  of  the  alternatives,  and  either  choice  bristled  with 
objections.  Peace  and  free  commerce  were  desirable, 
but  the  two  could  not  be  had  together.  Modest  retire 
ment  from  the  ocean  or  a  war  of  commercial  restraints, 
the  peace  men  themselves  would  not  submit  to.  Open 
and  violent  war,  therefore,  was  undertaken ;  rashly,  we 
cannot  doubt,  and  over-confidently,  and  yet  honestly, 
and,  as  events  turned  out,  by  no  means  disastrously  to 
the  national  character.  There  could  not  be  a  war  for 
our  maritime  and  neutral  rights  without,  in  some  sense, 
an  offensive  war. 

Want  of  sectional  unanimity,  however,  was  the  first 
and  almost  a  decisive  obstacle  to  this  contest.  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  the  States  south  and  west,  earnestly  sup 
ported  it,  while  New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 


WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      145 

and  Delaware  rather  held  back.  The  instinct  of  honor 
and  self-preservation  should  unite  citizens  to  arm  for 
their  country  alike  when  once  the  resolve  is  taken.  Not 
thus,  however,  was  Federalism  prepared  to  reason. 
Pride,  prejudice,  inflexibility  of  temper,  bitterly  disap 
pointed  ambition,  the  patriotism  of  State  lines,  held 
these  Federal  Catos  together.  Not  disunionists,  neces 
sarily,  such  leaders  seemed  to  prefer  the  worst  calamity 
to  the  Union  rather  than  they  should  turn  out  false 
prophets. 


After  the  war  against  England  had  fully  begun,  news 
arrived  that  the  British  ministry  had  decided  to  sus 
pend  the  Orders  in  Council;  but  hostilities       Igl3. 
continued  as  before  between  the  belligerents.    J»nu»ry- 
When   Congress   reassembled   a  debate  arose   in   the 
House  in  consequence,  and  Quincy,  of  the  opposition, 
bitterly  arraigned  the  administration  while  opposing  all 
further  military  outlay. 

In  a  speech,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  he  ever  made 
in  his  life,  Henry  Clay,  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  vin 
dicated  the  Cabinet  and  administration  party  and  justi 
fied  the  existing  war.  Reviewing  the  inconsistencies  of 
an  opposition  band  whose  voice  was  first  for  war  and 
no  restrictions  while  the  administration  sought  peace, 
and  next  for  peace  and  restrictions  when  the  adminis 
tration  was  for  war, — of  parasites  throwing  out  the 
idea  of  French  influence,  "which  is  known  to  be  false, 
and  which  ought  to  be  met  in  one  manner  only,  namely, 
by  the  lie  direct," — Clay  proceeded  to  consider  the  cir 
cumstances  under  which  the  government  had  felt  com 
pelled  to  declare  war,  and  the  motives  which  still  re 
mained  for  pursuing  it.  The  British  repeal,  or  rather, 


i46         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

suspension  of  Orders  in  Council  coming  so  late,  it  does 
not  follow  that  that  which  would,  in  the  first  instance, 
have  prevented,  would  also  terminate  a  war.  "As  to  my 
self,"  observed  the  speaker,  "I  have  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  I  have  always  considered  the  impressment 
of  American  seamen  as  much  the  most  serious  aggres 


sion." 


That  which  gave  the  Promethean  fire  to  our  war  with 
Great  Britain  was  not,  history  must  admit,  its  first 
most  prominent  issue;  and  here  Clay  showed  the  pro 
found  statesman  and  orator  by  lighting  with  his  logic 
the  most  moving  cause  of  all,  that  which  had  been  too 
long  subordinated,  and  by  stimulating  the  national 
pride  and  indignation  against  the  foreign  power  which, 
in  this  respect,  was,  and  always  had  been,  America's 
sole  aggressor.  "If  Great  Britain,"  exclaimed  Clay, 
"desires  a  mark  by  which  she  can  know  her  own  sub 
jects,  let  her  give  them  an  ear  mark.  The  colors  that 
float  from  the  masthead  should  be  the  credentials  of  our 
seamen."  And  with  a  thrilling  pathos,  of  which  this 
orator's  words,  apart  from  his  action,  can  afford  but  a 
faint  impression,  he  pictured  the  piteous  condition  of 
the  American  sailor  who  had  fought  his  country's  bat 
tles,  pining  in  the  oppressor's  prison,  while  his  govern 
ment  pleaded  excuses  for  leaving  him  there.* 

This  eloquent  speech  revived  the  drooping  spirits  of 
the  country.  The  war  went  on,  and  the  needful  war 
measures  were  pushed  briskly  forward. 

*Newspapers  of  the  time  record  the  wonderful  effect  produced 
on  Clay's  listeners  by  this  pathetic  description.  The  day  was 
a  cold  one,  but  the  audience  left  the  Capitol  with  beating  hearts. 
Niles's  Register;  Washington  Intelligencer,  etc. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  MADISON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8i3-March  3, 
1815.— §  n.  Period  of  Fourteenth  Congress.  March  4,  1815- 
March  3,  1817. 

ASSEMBLING  amid  rumors  of  treason  and  the 
execration  of  all  the  country  west  of  the  Hud 
son,  its  members  watched  by  an  army  officer 
who  had  been  conveniently  stationed  in  the  vicinity,  the 
Hartford  Convention,  hardening  into  stone,  preserves 
for  all  ages  a  sphinx-like  mystery. 

The  labors  of  this  convention,  whatever  they  were, 
ended  with  a  report  and  resolutions,  signed  by  the 
delegates  present,  and  adopted  on  the  day  be 
fore  final  adjournment.  These  were  promul- 
gated  without  explanatory  comment.  Report 
and  resolutions  disappointed,  doubtless,  both 
citizens  who  had  wished  a  new  declaration  of  inde 
pendence,  and  citizens  who  had  feared  it.  Constitu 
tional  amendments  were  here  proposed,  which,  not 
utterly  objectionable  under  other  circumstances,  must 
have  been  deemed  at  this  time  an  insult  to  those 
officially  responsible  for  the  national  safety,  and  only 
admissible  as  a  humiliation  of  the  majority.  It  re 
quires  but  little  imagination  to  read,  in  report  and 
resolutions,  a  menace  to  the  Union  in  its  hour  of  tribu 
lation,  a  demand  for  the  purse  and  sword,  to  which  only 
a  craven  Congress  could  have  yielded,  and  a  threat  of 
local  armies  which,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  mutual 


148         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

aid,  might  in  some  not  remote  contingency  be  turned 
against  foes  American  not  less  than  British. 

Was  this  political  strategy  in  order  to  teach  the 
American  nation  to  look  up  to  Federalism  as  the  bra 
zen  serpent,  or  was  it  New  England's  serious  ultima 
tum  to  her  sister  States?  From  whichever  point  it 
should  be  regarded,  never  did  amiable,  upright  gentle 
men  of  the  bar  fail  more  ignominiously  as  confidential 
advisers  of  a  rebellion.  An  uprising  of  shipping  mer 
chants,  clergy,  and  moneyed  men,  of  the  conservative 
forces  of  society  against  the  aspiring,  could  scarcely 
have  been  heroic  or  popular;  and  the  conventionists, 
moreover,  had  duly  estimated  neither  the  wariness  of 
governments  abroad,  nor  the  reserved  strength  of  our 
own.  Before  the  Congress,  now  in  session,  had  actu 
ally  resorted  to  a  conscription,  before  new  and  burden 
some  taxes  could  be  assessed  or  a  national  bank  char 
tered,  and  while  the  novel  experiment  of  enrolling 
State  volunteers  promised  all  the  troops  immediately 
desired,  the  war-cloud  suddenly  parted.  Massachu 
setts  and  Connecticut  had  accepted  the  report  of  the 
Hartford  Convention  and  made  the  measures  thus  pro 
posed  their  own.  Each  State  quickly  dispatched  com 
missioners  to  Washington,  accordingly,  to  make  upon 
Congress  the  demand  for  a  separate  maintenance. 
Quickly,  indeed,  but  too  late.  Those  demands  were 
never  made;  for  before  the  State  commissioners  could 
reach  the  national  capital,  salutes  were  firing  and  the 
stars  and  stripes  floated  free.  The  vast  area  of  our 
indivisible  Union  was  becoming  spangled  by  night  with 
illuminations.  Almost  simultaneously  came  the  good 
February  news  to  Washington  that  Jackson  had  driven 
"~l8-  the  British  from  New  Orleans,  and  that  our 
commissioners  abroad  had  concluded  an  honorable 


PEACE  WITH   VICTORY  149 

peace  at  Ghent  on  the  24th  of  December.  Peace,  wel 
come  peace,  had  returned;  a  peace  welcomed  in  the 
arms  of  victory. 


All  was  exuberance  of  joy  in  the  last  weeks  of  this 
Congressional  session.  Debatable  measures  were  laid 
aside,  as  the  new  aspect  of  affairs  permitted.  Military 
operations  were  declared  suspended.  All  calls  for  addi 
tional  troops  were  countermanded ;  the  militia  being  dis 
charged  as  speedily  as  possible,  and  the  State  volunteer 
act  likewise  repealed.  Deferring  Dallas's  bank  scheme, 
Congress  provided  for  the  immediate  wants  of  the  treas 
ury  by  a  temporary  loan  and  a  new  issue  of  treasury 
notes.  In  token,  moreover,  of  reconciliation  and  re 
newed  commerce,  the  offending  remnants  of  our  dis 
crimination  and  non-intercourse  system,  now  harmless 
enough,  were  cleared  away  by  an  act  of  final  repeal. 
In  the  midst  of  this  happy  work  the  clock  struck  the 
hour  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Thirteenth  Congress; 
whose  members,  almost  bewildered  by  the  sudden  tran 
sition  from  despair  to  delight,  did  not,  however,  dis 
perse  to  their  homes  without  recommending  to  the 
country  a  day  of  thanksgiving  to  Almighty  God  "for 
His  great  goodness  manifested  in  restoring  to  these 
United  States  the  blessing  of  peace." 


The  last  two  years  of  Madison's  administration,  em 
bracing  the  period  of  the  Fourteenth  Congress,  possess 
little  historical  interest.  A  nation  of  strong  vitality 
emerging  from  a  wasteful  war,  seeks  needful  rest  and 
recuperation ;  accounts  are  cast  and  adjusted ;  scaffold 
ings  and  temporary  props  against  danger  are  taken 


150         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

down  and  the  house  is  put  to  rights,  swept,  and  gar 
nished  ;  the  old  order  changes,  but  not  yet  giving  place 
to  the  new.  Our  first  consciousness  was  that  of  com 
plete  emancipation,  like  that  of  a  child  reaching  ma 
jority.  Neither  French  faction  nor  British  faction 
could  exist  among  this  great  people  longer.  The  Amer 
ican  Union,  henceforth  a  nation  with  peculiar  interests 
and  peculiar  institutions,  would  pursue  its  independent 
course  upon  an  independent  responsibility,  free  from 
the  control  or  interference  of  the  Old  World.  Like 
passengers  on  an  emigrant  ship  dropping  down  the 
channel,  whose  pilot  has  just  left  for  shore,  our  people 
realized  for  the  moment  more  keenly  the  severance  of 
ties  two  centuries  old,  and  of  dependence  as  colonies 
upon  Europe,  hitherto  almost  habitual,  than  the  new 
freedom  of  the  deep  and  a  new  destiny.  This  consti 
tutional  Union  had  passed  the  outer  light  of  early  ex 
periment.  On  the  vanishing  bank  stood  the  great  foun 
ders,  the  revolutionary  fathers,  the  Mentors,  all  who 
had  hoped  or  feared  for  it.  A  new  era  was  dawning. 
Those  provincial  thirteen,  or  that  frugal  confederacy 
of  unwarlike  States;  who  would  ever  imagine  such  a 
Union  again? 

Madison,  certainly,  who  saw  the  driftwood  of  old 
parties  floating  by,  had  no  strong  desire  but  to  avoid 
dangers,  and  round  his  anxious  administration  and  long 
public  career  to  a  happy  close.  To  provide  a  national 
peace  establishment  and  restore  the  disordered  finances 
was  his  main  solicitude.  The  Fourteenth  Congress 
worked  harmoniously  with  the  Executive  to  the  same 
end. 


The  war  of  1812  was  fought  under  circumstances 


LESSONS  OF  THE  WAR  151 

quite  adverse  to  the  United  States,  and  adverse,  most 
of  alt,  in  what  human  wisdom  could  hardly  have  fore 
seen,  the  sudden  and  utter  downfall  and  collapse  of  the 
Napoleon  dynasty,  because  of  an  idiosyncrasy, — the 
"Blind  fatalism  of  its  founder.  The  season  did  not  seem 
ill  chosen  at  first;  but  so  quickly  was  the  whole  Euro 
pean  skein  unravelled,  that  England's  victorious  arms 
were  turned  against  America  almost  as  soon  as  Ameri 
can  troops  could  fight  in  earnest.  From  an  intended 
conquest  of  Canada,  the  war  became  a  struggle  to  main 
tain  in  its  integrity  the  territory  we  already  owned. 

This  state  of  things,  however,  brought  its  own  com 
pensation.  America  owed  no  new  debt  of  gratitude 
to  France,  and  had  incurred  no  responsibility  whatever 
in  the  good  or  ill  fortune  of  her  misguided  ruler.  His 
Leipsic  was  not  ours,  nor  his  Austerlitz.  Moreover, 
with  Napoleon  crushed  and  revolutionary  France 
stretched  prostrate,  weary  Europe  sought  repose.  The 
war  for  maritime  supremacy  was  over,  with  the  vio 
lence  used  to  obtain  it,  and  peace  on  the  Continent  of 
old  institutions  laid  a  rational  foundation  for  the  solid 
superstructure  of  peace  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain.  The  American  attitude  at  the  period 
of  the  Vienna  Congress  assured  for  this  country  prac 
tical  advantages  with  Europe  far  beyond  what  the 
treaty  of  Ghent  in  terms  professed  to  confer. 

We  had  resisted  contumely  and  wrong ;  we  had  nego 
tiated,  protested,  and  then  had  fought  for  free,  unob 
structed  trade  and  sailors'  rights.  Fighting,  we  had 
humiliated  on  the  ocean  the  proudest  and,  in  that  day, 
the  most  insolent  naval  power  of  the  world.  Precisely 
this  was  the  guaranty  of  commerce  and  commercial 
respect  that  our  young  and  rising  nation  needed,  and 
the  only  one  worth  having  at  all ;  for  England  respected 


152         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

courage  above  all  things,  and  neutral  commerce  at  her 
loss  there  could  not  have  been  so  long  as  she  could 
make  the  neutral  her  fag  and  subordinate.  Hull,  Bain- 
bridge,  Decatur,  Jones,  and  Perry  negotiated,  there 
fore,  the  impressment  difficulty  better  than  all  the  sec 
retaries  and  envoys  since  1790;  and  of  British  invaders 
there  was  no  longer  a  fear  after  Jackson's  siege-guns 
had  spoken  at  New  Orleans.  Under  the  treaty  of  1814, 
in  short,  the  United  States  of  America  became  com 
pletely  divested  for  the  first  time  of  the  colonial  attri 
bute  and  solemnly  divorced  from  Europe. 

The  lessons  of  this  war  to  the  Old  World  and  the 
New  were  worth  all  they  cost;  which  cost,  at  the  most  ~ 
liberal  calculation, — apart  from  the  loss  of  human  life 
incident  to  all  wars, — consisted  of  a  war  debt  easily 
paid  off  afterwards;  of  spoliation  claims  against  a 
bankrupt  emperor,  whose  liquidation  neither  frowns 
nor  friendship  were  likely  to  have  ever  procured ;  of  the 
forced  suspension  of  a  foreign  commerce  fleeced  on 
both  sides  of  the  Channel,  and  scarcely  pursued  at  all 
except  by  violating  the  decrees  of  one  power  for  the 
benefit  of  another.  To  sanguine  Americans  this  war 
administered  a  wholesome  corrective  of  excellent  Jeffer- 
sonian  maxims.  It  taught  them  that  passion  and  self- 
aggrandizement,  with  nations  as  with  individuals,  may 
blunt  the  edge  of  honor ;  that  for  international  disputes 
a  good  argument  is  well  sustained  by  a  prudent  display 
of  warlike  resources ;  that  while  war  should  be  the  last 
resort  of  an  aggrieved  nation,  wars  prove  costly  when 
entered  upon  with  inadequate  preparation,  can  seldom 
accomplish  the  earliest  expectation,  and  never  are  easily 
relinquished;  that  Americans  should  abate  State  pride 
and  draw  closer  into  the  bonds  of  nationality,  as  the 
strongest  safeguard  against  wars  without  and  commo- 


MONROE    CHOSEN   PRESIDENT     153 

tions  within,  and  yet  trust  the  honor  of  the  American 
name  to  the  intelligent  American  people,  confident  of 
their  means,  their  constancy,  their  patriotism,  for  pro 
tecting  it  in  a  good  cause  against  the  mightiest  foe  on 
earth.  For  invasion  this  Union  might  fail,  but  for  self- 
defence  it  was  invincible. 


Monroe's  election  was  hailed  at  the  West,  where,  like 
Jefferson,  he  enjoyed  immense  popularity  without  hav 
ing  ever  made  its  tour;  and  this  was  partly 
because  of  his  agency  injprocuring  for  the. 
Union  a  free  Mississippi.  Nor  were  Eastern  men  dis 
pleased  ;  for  even  Anglo-Federalists  remembered  Mon 
roe  as  negotiator  of  the  British  treaty  which  Jefferson 
had  rejected.  "  Hartford  Convention,"  and  "  Blue 
lights,"  were  already  words  of  reproach  hard  for  them 
to  bear.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  and  his  associates  ten 
dered  the  olive  branch,  desiring  friendship  with  the 
incoming  administration.  An  intimate  friend  of  Mon 
roe  visited  Boston  in  1816,  and  this  set  treated  him  with 
marked  hospitality.  They  wished  Monroe  would  jour 
ney  to  New  England  and  discover  for  himself  how  firm 
was  the  loyalty  of  that  section. 

Monroe  was  not  unimpressed  by  these  overtures, 
but,  nevertheless,  reserved  his  decision.  He  agreed 
with  Andrew  Jackson,  who  had  advised  him  in  the 
Course  of  a  singular  correspondence,  divulged  many 
years  later,  that  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  country 
ought  not  to  be  the  head  of  a  party,  but  of  the  nation. 
Those,  thought  the  President-elect,  who  left  the  Fed 
eral  party  during  the  war,  were  entitled  to  the  highest 
confidence;  but  towards  Federalists  with  principles  un 
friendly  to  our  system  he  felt  differently.  "  The  ad- 


154         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ministration,"  he  wrote  to  Jackson,  "  ought  to  rest 
strongly  upon  the  Republican  party,  indulging  towards 
the  other  a  spirit  of  moderation  and  discrimination ;  we 
must  prevent  the  reorganization  and  revival  of  the  Fed 
eral  party." 

While  Monroe  thus  forecast  the  future,  Madison's 
sun  sank  calmly  to  its  setting.  This  administration 
had  been  an  eventful  one,  full  of  strange  vicissitudes; 
but  joy  came  at  last,  and  long  tribulation  brought  a 
welcome  peace,  more  secure  than  America  had  known 
for  seventy  years.  Madison,  therefore,  left  public  sta 
tion  with  applause ;  and  the  genuine  esteem  with  which 
he  was  already  regarded,  after  a  long  public  career 
of  unsullied  honor,  unswerving  patriotism,  and  con 
spicuous  usefulness  to  his  fellow-men,  gradually  deep 
ened  into  affection,  if  not  reverence.  He  outlived  all 
his  contemporaries  of  1787,  and  all  political  enmities; 
and  in  the  course  of  his  long  and  happy  retirement 
earned  new  claims  to  public  gratitude  by  contributing 
much  to  the  historical  record  of  his  illustrious  times 
and  assuaging  the  heat  of  new  controversies.  His 
homestead,  approached  through  long  avenues  of  noble 
trees,  was  Montpelier,  a  fine  wheat  farm,  not  far  from 
the  little  town  of  Orange;  and  here,  with  his  accom 
plished  wife,  he  lived  quietly  among  neighbors  of  sim 
ple  manners  like  himself,  Jefferson,  his  distinguished 
friend,  being  within  half  a  day's  ride.  Faithful  in  all 
the  relations  of  life,  pure,  upright,  diligent,  discreet, 
disinterested,  benevolent,  Madison  possessed  those 
traits  to  which  old  age  always  gives  lustre.  Well- 
deserving  of  the  nation,  he  had  attained  all  the  honors 
the  nation  could  bestow,  and  had  done  a  remarkable 
filial  service  in  return.  His  faults  were  those  of  a  pru 
dent  rather  than  a  zealous  or  daring  executive;  respon- 


MADISON'S    CAREER    CLOSES       155 

sibility  rested  uneasily  upon  his  shoulders,  for  he  had 
been  bred  a  counsellor,  and  as  President  he  could  not 
stand  firmly  against  opposition.  His  administration 
had  been  weakest  where  the  pressure  came  upon  execu 
tive  discretion,  and  strongest  where  its  course  was  dic 
tated  by  the  popular  wishes,  of  which  Madison  had 
always  a  delicate  perception.  Conscientious  as  he  was 
docile  and  capable,  even  weakness  like  this  could  not 
ruin  the  public  interests  committed  to  him,  for  disci 
pline  brought  correction;  and  though  a  President  of 
accommodating  opinions,  perhaps,  his  opinions  were 
accommodated,  nevertheless,  to  the  times.  Madison 
could  never  go  far  wrong,  for  he  never  went  counter 
to  the  sense  of  those  he  governed;  but  in  the  war  of 
1812  he  seemed  less  a  preceptor  and  guide  than  the 
instrument  of  those  who  took  up  arms  so  boldly  to  vin 
dicate  American  honor ;  and  hence  the  American  people 
remembered  his  Presidency  in  after  years  less  for  his 
achievements  than  their  own. 

As  contrasted  with  his  greater  friend  Jefferson,  with 
whom  comparisons  were  naturally  instituted  as  long 
as  they  both  lived,  Madison  appeared  to  some  disad 
vantage;  impressing  others  less  as  a  statesman,  a  free 
and  easy  liver  and  man  of  the  world,  than  as  some 
laborious  closet  counsellor,  thoughtful  and  reserved, 
who  puts  others  forward  to  act,  after  bestowing  his 
judicious  advice.  But  Madison's  wisdom  and  experi 
ence  were  ample;  he  was  skilful  in  debate  as  with  the 
pen ;  though  reticent,  he  knew  well  where  to  strike ;  and 
with  all  his  customary  precision  of  manner  and  quiet 
demeanor,  he  was  withal  social  and  good-humored 
among  intimate  acquaintances,  full  of  anecdote,  and 
given  not  unfrequently  to  sly  sallies  of  repartee  that 
provoked  a  laugh.  A  little  man  in  stature,  with  small 


156         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

features,  rather  wizened  by  the  time  he  was  President, 
he  incited  those  who  disliked  his  politics  into  diminu 
tive  and  disparaging  epithets ;  but  delicate  and  puny  as 
he  looked,  few  statesmen  ever  bore  with  such  elasticity 
the  terrible  anxieties  of  an  eventful  career.  In  dress 
Madison  always  showed  good  taste ;  there  was  no  affec 
tation  or  dandyism  about  him;  but  like  a  well-bred 
gentleman  of  the  old  school  he  appeared  in  dignified 
black,  with  knee  breeches  and  buckles,  black  silk  stock 
ings,  and  powdered  hair. 

Few  Presidents,  it  has  been  remarked,*  ever  quitted 
office  under  circumstances  so  agreeable  as  those  which 
surrounded  this  second  of  the  Republican  chieftains; 
and  no  man  of  good  feeling,  we  may  add,  can  grudge 
Madison  the  happiness  under  which  his  immensely  diffi 
cult  administration  at  last  terminated,  nor  the  cheerful 
disposition  which  he  was  enabled  to  carry  with  him 
into  the  decline  of  years.  Modest  by  nature,  he  never 
claimed  more  than  his  due  allowance  of  the  public  grat 
itude;  and  in  that  humane  and  benevolent  strain  which 
suited  his  temperament  far  better  than  the  fulminations 
of  bloody  strife,  he  closed  his  last  annual  message  to 
Congress,  with  a  eulogium  upon  the  American  people 
and  their  government  for  seeking  "  by  appeals  to  rea 
son,  and  by  its  liberal  examples,  to  infuse  into  the  law 
which  governs  the  civilized  world  a  spirit  which  may 
diminish  the  frequency  or  circumscribe  the  calamities 
of  war,  and  meliorate  the  social  and  beneficent  rela 
tions  of  peace ;  a  government,  in  a  word,  whose  conduct, 
within  and  without,  may  bespeak  the  most  noble  of  all 
ambitions, — that  of  promoting  peace  on  earth  and  good 
will  to  man." 

*9  H.  Adams,  142. 


CHAPTER  X. 

FIRST   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JAMES    MONROE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Fifteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i8i7-March  3,  1819. 
— §  II.  Period  of  Sixteenth  Congress.  March  4,  iSig-March 
3,  1821. 

MONROE  was  inaugurated  on  a  day  of  spring 
sunshine,  unusual  for  early  March 
in  the  latitude  of  our  national  cap-  Ma£ch7;. 
ital.     The  softness  of  the  air,  the  radiance  of 
the  noonday  sun,  the  serenity  of  the  rural  surroundings, 
from  wooded  heights  to  the  placid  Potomac,  carried  a 
sense  of  tranquil  happiness  to  the  hearts  of  thousands 
of  spectators  who  had  assembled  for  the  out-of-door 
ceremonies  on  Capitol  Hill.     No  accident  or  mishap 
from  sunrise  to  midnight  marred  the  peaceful  pleasure 
of  the  auspicious  occasion. 

These  public  ceremonies  had  most  of  the  usual  ac 
companiments  of  a  Presidential  inauguration.  There 
was  an  escort  to  Capitol  Hill,  and  back  through  Penn 
sylvania  Avenue,  made  up,  as  in  those  times  was  cus 
tomary,  of  District  militia,  regulars,  and  marines,  to 
gether  with  a  large  cavalcade  of  citizens  and  others 
whom  a  Virginian  executive  might  well  regard  as 
friends  and  neighbors.  The  retiring  and  the  incoming 
President  rode  together  in  friendly  companionship. 
There  was  the  usual  brief  reception  in  the  Senate  Cham 
ber,  where  Tompkins,  the  Vice-President  elect,  had  just 


158         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

been  sworn  into  office;  the  adjournment  to  a  portico 
outside,  where,  in  sight  of  the  assembled  multitude 
and  surrounded  by  members  of  Congress  and  the  high 
officers  of  the  republic,  the  chief  magistrate-elect  read 
his  manuscript  address,  at  whose  close,  Marshall,  the 
Chief  Justice,  attired  in  black  gown,  administered  the 
simple  oath.  Then  followed  an  artillery  salute,  loud 
cheers,  and  the  commotion  of  a  dispersing  crowd.  The 
new  President,  like  his  predecessor,  received  congratu 
lations  in  the  afternoon  and  attended  in  the  evening  a 
public  ball. 

But  in  one  marked  particular  Monroe's  inauguration 
differed  from  all  others  before  or  since.  Though  the 
ceremonies  took  place  on  Capitol  Hill,  they  were  con 
ducted  at  a  little  distance  from  the  historical  or  hal 
lowed  ground ;  in  fact,  some  hundred  rods  to  the  north 
east  of  those  ruined  and  smoke-stained  wings  of  the 
Capitol,  whose  renovation  had  lately  commenced,  and 
in  front  of  a  new  and  unpretentious  brick  building 
which  one  Daniel  Carroll  and  others  had  erected  soon 
after  the  British  invasion,  and  leased  to  the  govern 
ment  for  the  accommodation  of  the  national  legislature. 
On  an  elevated  portico,  here  erected  for  the  special  oc 
casion,  stood  Monroe  when  he  pronounced  his  inau 
gural  address;  and,  as  he  spoke,  he  and  his  auditors 
might  contemplate  an  impressive  spectacle.  Yonder 
monumental  piles,  which  marked  the  site  of  our  former 
demolished  national  temple,  were  rising  once  again, 
slowly  but  safely,  better  proportioned,  with  an  enlarged 
area,  the  walls  resting  upon  their  original  foundations. 
Fragments  of  the  old  marble  columns,  consumed  by  in 
tense  heat,  and  blocks  of  freestone  which  were  cracked 
and  utterly  spoiled,  had  ere  this  been  removed  from  the 
north  wing  of  the  Capitol,  where  British  desecration 


MONROE'S  INAUGURATION        159 

did  its  worst;  in  the  south  wing,  though  columns  and 
the  vault  they  supported  stood  comparatively  unin 
jured,  much  had  to  be  taken  down,  that  a  space  might 
be  cleared  for  rebuilding;  so  that  at  the  present  point 
of  progress  the  work  of  architect  and  builder  typified 
immortal  hope  blossoming  afresh  out  of  the  relics  of 
despair.  This  scene,  which  nature  kindled  into  resplen 
dent  brightness,  found  no  expression  in  Monroe's  un 
imaginative  and  premeditated  utterances,  but  silently 
it  deepened,  we  may  rest  assured,  the  lesson  which  was 
spoken.  The  key-note  of  his  address  was  renewed 
faith  in  the  Union.  He  dwelt  upon  the  happy  vindi 
cation  of  our  republican  experiment  through  war  as 
well  as  peace ;  upon  the  renewed  prosperity  of  the  Amer 
ican  people,  and  an  increasing  harmony  of  States  and 
sections,  which  he  pledged  himself  to  promote.  Peace 
and  recuperation,  peace  and  national  unity, — these  were 
the  sentiments  of  the  day  and  the  occasion. 


Monroe  had  come  into  the  Presidency  at  a  time 
and  under  circumstances  most  opportune  for  recon 
ciling  the  jarring  sections,  and  becoming  in  person  the 
great  pacificator  of  our  national  politics.  He  had 
earned  promotion  to  the  highest  office  by  long  and  meri 
torious  public  service;  he  had  proved  himself  under 
Madison  the  most  useful  of  civilians  in  a  great  crisis, 
as  well  as  the  most  trusted.  Nor  had  Monroe  shrunk 
from  assuming  responsibility  in  that  crisis;  for  when, 
in  1814,  he  had  charge  of  the  War  Department,  and 
a  conscription  seemed  inevitable,  he  frankly  told  his 
friends,  who  were  preparing  to  nominate  him  to  the 
Presidency,  that  as  he  must  take  the  odium  of  pro 
posing  and  executing  so  unpopular  a  measure,  they 


160         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ought  to  put  him  aside.  War  ended  suddenly,  and 
without  a  conscription;  and  now  he  had  been  chosen 
President  by  a  vote  so  expressive  of  popular  con 
fidence,  that  ever  since  the  day  of  election,  when  it 
became  clear  that  political  parties  could  rally  no  longer 
on  the  old  issues,  politicians  of  all  parties  had  been 
hastening  to  assure  him  of  their  friendship  and  tender 
their  co-operation.  Monroe  was,  however,  no  theorist, 
but  a  sagacious,  experienced,  and  withal  honorable 
statesman ;  one,  moreover,  who  had  been  brought  up  in 
the  school  of  Republicanism.  Two  things  he  felt  were 
essential  in  any  event  to  a  successful  administration : 
one  that  it  should  lean  primarily  on  those  who  had 
brought  it  into  power ;  the  other  that  it  should  be  com 
posed  of  harmonious  and  not  distracting  elements.  For 
no  reunion  of  political  parties  can  be  more  false  or  de 
ceptive  than  that  which  consists  in  dividing  up  the 
official  patronage  among  the  old  leaders,  victors  and 
vanquished  alike.  To  call  in  men  who  had  inflexibly 
opposed  the  late  war,  and  whose  pride  must  have  been 
deeply  wounded  by  its  results,  meant  only  distraction 
and  constant  embarrassment,  besides  giving  to  the 
world  the  false  impression  that  America  had  become 
ashamed  of  her  own  cause.  Moreover,  the  chosen  can 
didate  of  a  party  should  not  be  perfidious  to  that  party. 
Hence,  in  the  private  correspondence  between  him 
self  and  Jackson,  already  alluded  to,  Monroe  had  pro 
nounced  himself  in  favor  of  keeping  the  government 
in  the  hands  of  its  decided  friends, — of  those  who  had 
stood  firm  in  the  day  of  trial.  But  at  the  same  time  he 
expressed  the  desire  to  indulge  a  spirit  of  moderation 
towards  late  opponents,  to  discriminate  among  them, 
and  to  bring  all  into  one  fold  as  quietly  as  possible. 
"Many  men  highly  distinguished  for  their  talents," 


MONROE'S  POLITICAL  VIEWS      161 

wrote  Monroe,  "are  of  opinion  that  the  existence  of 
the  Federal  party  is  necessary  to  keep  union  and  order 
in  the  Republican  ranks ;  that  is,  that  free  governments 
cannot  exist  without  parties.  This  is  not  my  opinion. 
That  the  ancient  republics  were  always  divided  into 
parties;  that  the  English  government  is  maintained 
by  an  opposition — that  is,  by  the  existence  of  a  party 
in  opposition  to  the  ministry — I  well  know.  But  I 
think  that  the  cause  of  these  divisions  is  to  be  found  in 
certain  defects  of  those  governments  rather  than  in 
human  nature ;  and  that  we  have  happily  avoided  those 
defects  in  our  system." 

The  political  tenets  thus  expressed  were  not  those  of 
the  old  school  of  statesmen.  Neither  Adams  nor  Jeffer 
son  believed  that  free  government  could  exist  without 
contending  parties ;  and  such  at  this  day  is  the  popular 
belief,  though  many  appear  to  insist  that  the  public  wel 
fare  requires  their  own  party  to  be  constantly  intrenched 
in  power  while  the  opposition  remains  as  constantly 
excluded.  Nevertheless  that  old  parties  may  so  dissolve 
and  old  party  names  disappear,  as  to  afford  for  a  season 
the  beautiful  spectacle  of  a  whole  people  reunited  and 
knit  firmly  together  in  fraternal  affection,  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt.  Taken  in  their  natural  course,  parties 
organize,  disorganize,  and  reorganize,  as  vital  issues 
change.  Within  seventy-five  years  passed  away  the 
Anti-Federal,  the  Federal,  the  first  Republican,  the 
Whig,  the  Native  American  parties.  When,  therefore, 
in  some  clearly  defined  and  overwhelming  political  con 
flict,  producing  fixed  and  lasting  results,  one  set  of  polit 
ical  leaders  has  wholly  lost  and  the  other  has  wholly 
won,  a  dissolution  of  parties  should  ensue.  To  keep  old 
wounds  open,  to  lacerate  the  vanquished,  becomes  rather 
the  effort  of  the  ambitious  and  unprincipled,  who  are 


1 62         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

unwilling  to  disband  their  followers,  than  of  a  people 
like  ours,  who  yearn  for  reconciliation  and  hasten  to 
renew  their  intercourse.  Here  a  magnanimous  policy 
is  the  true  and  the  safer  one;  and  the  administration 
that  persecutes  without  crushing,  compels  new  consti 
tutional  infractions  to  punish  old  ones,  and  leads  out  its 
party  as  it  was  before,  has  cruelly  abused  its  opportu 
nity.  None,  however,  but  a  President  of  comprehensive 
views,  sound  discretion,  and  irreproachable  honor  can 
accomplish  the  needful  task  of  exterminating  old  party 
divisions  and  giving  new  strength  and  direction  to  the 
government.  To  such  a  task  at  the  present  time 
Monroe  addressed  himself,  with  a  confidence  in  results 
that  was  not  misplaced. 


As  the  last  of  the  great  Virginian  executives  identi 
fied  with  our  early  national  history,  Monroe  challenges 
respect  as  one  who  had  preserved  for  his  own  adminis 
tration  the  ripe  fruit  of  former  experience.  He  was 
proud  of  his  native  State  and  of  all  who  had  given  it 
imperishable  renown.  A  filial  follower  of  the  great 
Jefferson,  whom  he  still  consulted  on  public  affairs, 
and  of  whose  confidence  in  the  popular  instinct  he  freely 
partook,  he  had  nevertheless  convinced  himself,  in  the 
course  of  a  long  diplomatic  service  abroad,  that  jealous 
nations  were  not  to  be  restrained  from  aggression  by 
the  maxims  of  peace  and  philanthropy.  To  Madison 
he  resorted  for  advice  still  more  constantly;  and  that 
worthiest  of  friends  and  wisest  of  advisers  shone,  when 
finally  relieved  of  the  executive  direction,  in  a  most  be 
coming  sphere.  But  Monroe  did  not  confine  himself 
to  the  old  Republican  circles  of  influence.  Marshall 
he  admired.  Nor  could  his  heart  cease  to  own  its  secret 


MONROE  AND  WASHINGTON       163 

allegiance  to  Virginia's  greatest  of  sons,  the  first  Presi 
dent.  The  memory  of  a  personal  difference  with  Wash 
ington  left  a  sad  but  mellowing  influence.  Though 
Monroe  always  believed  that  injustice  was  done  him  in 
his  recall  from  France  in  1796,  his  resentment  had 
turned  gradually  from  chief  executive  to  a  partisan 
cabinet  and  then  had  dried  up  altogether ;  possibly,  too, 
as  experience  and  reflection  strengthened  him,  he  came 
to  ascribe  much  of  the  blame  to  himself.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  by  the  time  of  his  accession  to  the  Presidency,  the 
illustrious  example  of  the  first  incumbent  had  become 
with  Monroe  an  overpowering  influence.  In  official 
methods  and  intercourse  he  aimed  at  restoring  some 
thing  of  its  pristine  dignity  to  the  chief  magistracy.  He 
travelled  through  the  States  north  and  south  as  Wash 
ington  had  done,  to  acquaint  himself  better  with  the 
condition  and  sentiments  of  the  people.  He  sought  the 
same  high  plane  of  unpartisan  service.  Without  Wash 
ington's  commanding  presence,  transcendent  fame,  or 
superb  endowments,  he  nevertheless  had  grown  to  re 
semble  him  strongly  in  predominant  traits  of  character ; 
and  more  especially,  in  an  honest  sincerity  of  purpose  to 
administer  well ;  in  habits  of  patient  and  deliberate  in 
vestigation,  all  contending  arguments  being  weighed 
dispassionately ;  and  in  a  fixed  determination  not  to  be 
influenced  in  a  public  trust  by  private  considerations. 
Even  in  personal  looks  the  last  Virginian,  with  his  pla 
cid  and  sedate  expression  of  face,  regular  features,  and 
a  grayish-blue  eye,  which  invited  confidence,  had  come 
to  appear  not  unlike  the  first ;  so  that  in  these  years  the 
names  of  Washington  and  Monroe  became  naturally 
coupled  together.  This  resemblance,  however,  was 
most  nearly  like  that  of  father  and  son,  where  the  one, 
whose  character  was  the  stronger,  has  inspired  awe, 


1 64         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

while  the  other  touches  rather  the  chord  of  personal 
sympathy  by  the  blending  of  softer  maternal  traits. 

Towards  his  grand  exemplar  Monroe's  later  yearn 
ings  were  indeed  those  of  a  surviving  son,  loved  but 
perhaps  disowned ;  and  he  preserved  with  touching  con 
stancy  the  details  of  a  strange  story  which  circulated 
in  Virginia  circles.  Washington,  it  was  said,  loved 
the  young  Monroe  to  his  death;  and  his  death  was 
owing,  not  so  much  to  an  accidental  personal  exposure 
to  the  weather  on  an  inclement  day,  according  to  the 
usual  report,  as  to  the  chagrin  which  preyed  on  his 
mind  after  he  saw  how  the  fall  election  had  resulted. 
For  a  Republican  victory  in  Virginia  brought  Mon 
roe  from  retirement  into  the  governor's  chair,  and 
Washington  felt  that  his  own  State  rebuked  him  for  a 
harshness  he  had  long  regretted  but  had  never  atoned 
for. 


In  imitation  of  Washington,  Monroe,  soon  after  his. 
inauguration,  made  an  extended  tour  northward.  Its 
results  were  remarkable  in  re-establishing  that  frater 
nal  spirit  which  he  had  pledged  himself  to  restore,  and 
in  binding  together  once  more  States  friendly  and 
States  disaffected  to  the  cause  of  the  Union  during  the 
late  war.  The  state  of  Monroe's  health,  which  needed 
relaxation,  favored  such  a  journey;  so,  too,  the  desire 
to  gain  personal  information;  nor  had  the  invitation 
of  Otis  and  his  Boston  associates  been  forgotten.  But 
the  immediate  occasion  of  the  tour  was  to  inspect  and 
draw  public  attention  to  a  new  system  of  coast  forti 
fications,  which,  with  the  sanction  of  the  late  Congress, 
was  progressing  under  the  capable  direction  of  General 
Bernard,  a  French  officer,  who  brought  letters  from 


MONROE'S  EASTERN  TOUR        165 

Lafayette,  and  remained  until  the  work  was  in  sub 
stance  completed. 

It  was  in  Boston,  during  the  present  tour,  that  the 
felicitous  phrase  "the  era  of  good  feeling"  originated, 
which  has  since  by  general  acclamation  become  the 
appropriate  epithet  of  Monroe's  eight-years'  term.  Nor 
can  it  be  doubted  that  such  an  era,  for  better  or  worse, 
was  now  ushered  in ;  its  best  accompaniment  being  the 
long  subsidence  of  popular  tumults,  and  its  worst  the 
jpetty  scheming  of  rival  leaders,  who  must  needs  jostle 
in  a  port  when  the  seas  are  closed.  The  old  party  lines 
presently  began  to  fade.  The  name  of  "Democrat," 
which  had  been  gradually  acquiring  favor,  was  dropped 
for  a  time;  that  of  "Federalist"  quite  disappeared,  and 
even  Jeffersonian  Republicanism  lost  its  earlier  signifi 
cance. 

While  in  Boston,  Monroe  was  pointedly  warned  by  a 
Massachusetts  man  of  conspicuous  family,  who  dis 
claimed  personal  interest,  that  former  Federal  leaders 
were  jealous  of  one  another,  that  they  craved  power 
and  distinction,  and  that  of  them  all  only  Webster  and 
Lloyd  could  be  trusted.  He  apprehended,  too,  that, 
notwithstanding  the  eastern  people  of  all  parties  had 
now  come  over  to  him,  they  were  still  too  much  under 
the  old  and  virulent  political  influences,  and  that  only 
younger  men,  impressible  with  the  national  idea  of  the 
future,  were  fit  to  conduct  them  into  new  lines  of  policy 
and  new  combinations.  Pre-eminently  fit  for  that  work 
was  Webster,  as  the  event  proved ;  a  growing  giant  of 
superb  intellectual  endowments,  born  to  command. 
Though  a  conservative  by  temperament  and  a  Federal 
ist  by  training,  his  past  record  had  not  committed  him 
to  the  acerbities  of  the  late  war ;  and  present  retirement 
serving  him  well  for  reflection  and  the  accumulation  of 


1 66         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

power,  when  he  re-entered  public  life  in  the  full  panoply 
of  manhood  his  section  might  trust  him  as  an  eloquent 
defender,  and  the  whole  people  as  a  statesman  whose 
ruling  passion  was  the  love  of  a  national  union. 


That  Clay  was  vexed  at  not  having  the  first  place  in 
the  cabinet  offered  to  him  cannot  be  doubted ;  nor  that 
his  chagrin  was  increased  when  he  knew  that  Adams, 
with  whom  he  had  so  constantly  bickered  at  Ghent, 
had  received  the  portfolio  of  State  instead.  It  was 
early  foreseen  that  in  consequence  Clay,  though  ranking 
hitherto  among  the  friends  of  the  new  administration, 
would  oppose  it  in  Congress.  A  man  of  ardent  ambi 
tion,  Clay  was,  nevertheless,  honorable  in  the  main, 
lofty  in  general  purpose,  and  sedulous  of  the  public 
welfare.  He  had  been  a  most  useful  statesman  of  late, 
both  as  legislator  and  diplomatist,  helping  the  country 
out  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain  as  skilfully  as  he  had 
led  it  in ;  and,  in  whatever  service  engaged,  leaving  the 
remarkable  impression  of  courage,  self-confidence  and 
fertility  in  resources.  But  a  lively  imagination  some 
times  captivated  his  judgment,  and  throwing  the  full 
radiance  of  his  lantern  forward,  he  would  spring  upon 
a  new  path  without  perceiving  the  obstacles  which  were 
closest.  At  this  time  his  quick  political  instinct  told 
Clay  that  the  American  people  would  leave  the  old 
parties  and  re-form  on  new  issues.  He  darted 
forward  to  occupy  those  issues  and  become  the  standard 
bearer  of  the  future.  But  he  did  not  realize  that  this 
dissolution  of  old  parties  would  be  slow,  very  slow; 
nor  how  gladly  our  citizens  would  welcome,  meantime, 
the  unwonted  respite  from  political  turbulence.  He 
could  not  be  convinced  that  Monroe  had  both  the  power 


CLAY  AND  CRAWFORD  167 

and  opportunity  to  repress  the  growth  of  new  par 
ties;  and,  blindly  enough,  he  appears  to  have  shared 
Crawford's  belief  that  there  would  be  a  speedy  schism 
among  Monroe's  supporters,  followed  by  a  new  com 
bination  of  the  discordant  elements  which,  headed  by 
a  dissatisfied  West,  his  own  section  and  the  section  not 
represented  in  the  cabinet,  might,  under  good  manage 
ment,  bring  the  new  administration  to  the  ground. 

Both  Crawford  and  Clay  were  in  a  sense  political 
gamesters.  Clay  played  for  popularity,  or  rather  for 
that  public  gratitude  of  which  official  promotion  is,  or 
should  be,  the  natural  expression.  He  caught  the  omens 
of  the  future,  and  his  ambition  was  of  that  generous  sort 
which  makes  one  eager  to  be  first  in  promoting  meas 
ures  for  the  general  good.  Out  of  the  ideas  now  floating 
in  the  public  mind  he  gathered  presently  an  American 
system  or  policy  which  he  impressed  upon  the  coming 
age  with  all  the  vigor  of  his  eloquence  and  personality ; 
so  that,  whatever  his  individual  disappointments,  and 
these  were  many,  his  name  remains  inseparable  from 
the  annals  of  his  times. 

With  a  good  cause  and  generous  motives  for  espous 
ing  it,  Clay  must  have  been  irresistible.  So  impetuous 
was  the  torrent  of  his  eloquence,  rich  in  illustration  and 
apt  in  allusion;  so  readily  did  he  seem  to  grasp  the 
strong  points  of  the  cause  he  presented,  pleasing  and 
surprising  his  hearers  by  the  remote  ^analogies...: which 
a  delicate  intuition  detected;- so  strongly  would  he  put 
forth  the  results  of  an  investigation  which  bore  no 
trace  either  of  lapse  or  laborious  study;  and  above  all, 
such  was  his  fervid  appeal  as  a  fellow-man  to  humanity, 
to  the  pride  or  the  shame,  not  of  collective  listeners 
alone,  but  of  each  individual  among  them  who  dared 
to  doubt;  that  he  seemed  to  storm  at  the  door  of  the 


1 68         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

heart  while  making  a  feint  of  convincing  the  intellect. 
It  was  thus  that,  though  miscalculating  the  con 
sequences,  he  had  in  1812  nerved  the  country  to  plunge 
into  war  with  Great  Britain,  and  in  1813  to  continue 
the  conflict  for  sailors'  rights.  The  vivid  personifica 
tion  of  the  cause  he  pleaded :  the  wanderer,  the  prisoner, 
the  outcast,  the  persecuted  sufiferer,  or,  on  theotherhand, 
that  cowardly  auditor  whom  he  defied  to  go  home  and 
confess  to  his  constituents  his  own  baseness, — by  such 
portraiture  he  enforced  his  lesson.  In  such  impassioned 
flights  Clay  seemed  to  soar  in  the  pure  ether,  forgetful, 
like  the  eagle,  of  meaner  motives  that  might  have  given 
his  smoothly-spread  wings  their  first  flapping  impulse 
thither.  Clay's  oratory,  which  has  already  passed  into 
tradition,  so  inseparable  were  the  matter  and  manner 
of  his  speeches,  borrowed  little  from  grace  of  gesture 
or  the  arts  of  rhetoric.  He  was  tall  and  spare,  not  very 
muscular,  and  when  in  repose  his  countenance  too  often 
indicated  dissipation  as  well  as  genius.  When  crossed 
in  his  wishes,  or  slighted,  as  on  the  present  occasion, 
he  showed  himself  haughty  and  exasperating;  if  in 
dulged  far,  he  became  overbearing ;  but  his  disposition 
was  generous,  and  his  temper  by  no  means  implacable. 
His  friendly  approach  would  dispel  personal  enmity 
and  soften  prejudice,  one  of  its  familiar  accompani 
ments  being  the  offer  or  acceptance  of  a  pinch  of  snuff, 
which  he  enjoyed  after  the  custom  of  the  times.  With 
out  special  features  to  attract,  Clay's  whole  aspect  was 
engaging,  while  he  conversed  agreeably.  But  when  he 
spoke  the  impression  conveyed  was  immeasurably 
greater.  Not  fluent  or  rapid  in  utterance  at  first,  he 
gained  in  fire  and  energy  of  expression  as  his  speech 
went  on ;  a  slight  awkwardness  of  gesture  which  might 
mar  the  effect,  until  speaker  and  listener  had  warmed 


SPANISH  AMERICAN  REVOLT      169 

into  sympathy,  ceased  to  be  perceptible.  Clay's  eye 
beamed,  his  face  brightened,  all  the  movements  of  his 
figure  showed  that  he  was  earnestly  engrossed  with 
his  subject,  and  when  at  length  he  sat  down  the  legis 
lative  chamber  reverberated  with  the  accents  of  a  most 
melodious  voice. 


Revolution  in  the  Spanish  American  colonies  was 
a  phenomenon  of  the  times  which  bore  witness,  first, 
to  the  rapid  decline  of  Castilian  influence  in  that  new 
world  which  a  Catholic  line  of  monarchs  had  first  ap 
propriated  as  royal  domain;  next,  to  the  expanding 
force  of  the  self-governing  idea  for  which  the  United 
States  stood  as  chief  exponent  and  exemplar.  Lib 
erty,  repulsed  by  legitimacy  abroad,  winged  her  way 
across  the  Atlantic.  Once  more  had  commenced  the  war 
between  Spain  and  her  American  colonies  which  ante 
dated  the  present  century.  The  tyranny  and  extortion 
of  viceroys,  the  cupidity  of  adventurers  from  Europe, 
sufferings  endured  under  an  unequal  rule  and  in  the 
course  of  wars  from  which  they  themselves  could  reap 
no  benefit,  swelled  the  long  catalogue  of  grievances 
presented  by  these  South  American  subjects  to  justify 
their  revolt  against  the  mother-country.  In  1778  the 
ignorant  Indians  of  Upper  Peru  sought,  but  unsuc 
cessfully,  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  Spain.  Tranquillity 
followed  their  failure  until  the  opening  of  the  nine 
teenth  century;  at  which  epoch,  and  in  the  midst  of 
European  war  and  commotions,  many  of  the  South 
American  provinces  found  their  secret  longings  for 
liberty  fostered  by  the  policy  which  Pitt  or  Napoleon 
might  in  turn  elect  to  pursue,  not  from  sympathy, 
but  rather  so  as  to  cripple  Spain,  according  as  the  lot  of 


170         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

that  country  happened  to  be  cast  with  the  one  opponent 
or  the  other.  To  the  project  of  emancipating  these 
Spanish  provinces  and  laying  their  ports  open  to 
British  commerce — for  in  British  policy  trade  and  phi 
lanthropy  seek  constantly  the  same  market — we  have  al 
ready  alluded  in  connection  with  that  ill-fated  Miranda 
enterprise  which  once  so  dazzled  the  mind  of  our  Ham 
ilton.  Spain's  ill  success  in  the  European  struggle  at 
length  gave  the  South  Americans  the  longed-for  oppor 
tunity,  and  by  1813-14  they  had  broken  into  rebellion, 
Buenos  Ayres  taking  the  lead.  But  the  revolutionists 
were  wary;  for  though  mounting  the  republican  cock 
ade,  hoisting  an  independent  flag,  and  coining  their  own 
money,  they  issued  decrees  in  the  name  of  his  Catholic 
Majesty.  When  Ferdinand  VII.  became  restored  to  the 
Spanish  throne,  Buenos  Ayres  sent  a  deputation  to 
Madrid  acknowledging  a  conditional  allegiance.  But 
the  haughty  king  refused  to  temporize;  new  popular 
outbreaks  occurred;  and  on  the  9th  of  July,  1816,  the 
patriot  Congress  of  Buenos  Ayres  formally  declared  the 
independence  of  the  province.  From  that  day  the  con 
test  became  one  of  contending  armies,  between  invader 
and  defender.  Nor  was  the  revolution  confined  to 
Buenos  Ayres;  for  Paraguay  and  the  eastern  shore  of 
the  La  Plata,  regions  hitherto  governed  by  the  Spanish 
commandant  at  Buenos  Ayres,  except  for  some  portions 
held  by  Portugal,  likewise  revolted.  Chili,  too,  for 
mally  declared  an  independence  which,  behind  its  moun 
tain  ramparts,  had  been  virtually  enjoyed  for  many 
years.  The  revolutionary  spirit  spread  through  Vene 
zuela  and  the  northern  provinces  of  South  America 
which  had  alternately  refused  and  acknowledged  Euro 
pean  allegiance ;  and  nowhere  in  the  heart  of  the  Andes 
or  west  of  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  was  Spanish  su- 


A  NEW  DEMOCRACY  171 

premacy  longer  secure.  Brazil,  however,  that  vast 
eastern  domain  of  South  America,  had,  after  various 
vicissitudes,  accepted  an  hereditary  empire  in  1808 
from  Portugal,  and  was  long  contented. 


The  great  Republican  party  which  Jefferson  founded 
now  hastened  to  a  dissolution,  having  fulfilled  its  impor 
tant  mission,  first,  by  educating  the  American  people  to 
trust  their  own  virtue  and  capacity,  and  next  by  in 
ducing  them  to  strike  boldly  away  the  last  links  which 
bound  us  in  colonial  subservience  to  Europe  and  Euro 
pean  methods. 

Of  late  years  there  had  been  an  ardent  element 
perceptible  in  our  politics,  smothered,  perhaps,  and 
smouldering,  so  long  as  talents,  education,  and  prop 
erty  still  clearly  kept  the  mastery.  Smoke  issued  from 
the  flanks  of  the  rumbling  earth,  and  down  in  some 
yawning  fissure  glowed  the  red  embers.  These  were 
the  eruptions  of  the  fierce  but  nearly  suffocated  de 
mocracy,  jealous  and  emulous  of  rule,  but  always  re 
pressed,  or  at  least  restrained  from  mischief,  by  the 
common  sense  of  the  cheerful  majority. 

Wherever,  then,  great  social  inequalities  exist,  there 
must  be  a  class  which  staggers  under  harsh  burdens 
of  life  that  cannot  be  lifted,  and  knows  little  of  its 
pleasures.  That  class,  under  a  political  system  like 
ours,  constitutes  the  fierce  democracy,  or,  under  its 
harshest  aspect,  the  mob,  the  commune;  and  let  these 
protest,  let  them  vote  as  they  choose,  the  first  step  is 
taken  towards  making  them  contented  citizens.  More 
conservative  by  temperament,  more  respectful  to  su 
periors,  more  in  harmony  with  well-ordered  systems 
of  government,  less  ignorant,  less  violent,  better  quali- 


172         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

fied  to  rise  superior  to  early  disadvantages  and  achieve 
wealth  and  position,  is  the  native  citizen  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood.  It  is  the  fickle  and  excitable  immigrant 
who  falls  more  readily  into  the  class  we  describe;  for 
the  hand  of  oppression  has  moulded  habits  and  charac 
ter  so  that  adaptation  to  free  institutions  becomes  diffi 
cult,  almost  hopeless ;  and  without  hope  one  curses  the 
happy.  Opportunity  to  rise  dissolves  individual  mem 
bership  in  this  class,  and  keeps  jealousy  from  compact 
ing  mischief. 


As  between  the  two  old  parties,  Federalist  and 
Republican,  the  latter  had  doubtless  most  befriended 
this  class,  and  commanded  its  sympathy.  It  was 
Jefferson's  party  which  called  upon  those  in  the  hum 
bler  walks  to  participate,  while  Hamilton's  bade  them 
submit.  It  was  the  former  which  had  welcomed  for 
eign  toilers  to  these  shores,  while  the  other  sought 
not  only  to  repress,  but  to  banish  him.  The  excesses 
of  the  French  revolution,  nevertheless,  made  the  name 
of  "Democrat"  long  obnoxious  to  Anglo-Americans. 
Washington  himself  put  a  stigma  upon  it.  Nor,  as  we 
have  shown,  had  Jefferson  himself,  but  Jefferson's 
enemies,  applied  the  epithet  to  that  well-organized  force 
which  carried  the  Presidency  in  1800,  and  had  held  it 
ever  since;  their  object  being  to  excite  prejudice,  his 
to  allay  it.  Fifteen  years,  however,  had  produced  a 
change.  The  Republican  party,  as  a  national  body, 
now  embraced  both  democratic  and  conservative  ele 
ments,  and  one  might  have  heard  since  Jefferson's  re 
tirement  not  only  of  "Republican"  or  "old  school"  men, 
but  of  "Democratic  Republicans;"  nay,  even  of  those 
who  gloried  in  the  name  of  Democrat.  The  "Federal- 


DECAY  OF  PARTIES  173 

ist  party"  as  such  existed  no  longer,  but  conservatives 
of  a  British  patrician  cast,  who  took  pride  in  Federal 
antecedents,  were  to  be  found  in  the  political  ranks; 
these  not  unfrequently  holding  the  balance  of  power 
amid  the  vulgar  quarrels  to  which  factious  republicans 
of  democratic  stripe  descended,  more  especially  in  the 
Middle  States,  where  incongruous  elements,  native  and 
foreign,  were  brought  together.  Federalism  was  allied 
at  the  Eastward  with  judges,  college  professors,  scions 
of  the  old  families,  rich  merchants,  and  the  other  ele 
ments  locally  dominant  in  its  homogeneous  society. 
By  way  of  allusion  to  the  past,  or  for  convenient  dis 
crimination,  newspapers  would  sometimes  employ  still 
the  old  party  names;  but  the  word  "Federalist"  had  ere 
this  passed  into  our  popular  speech  as  the  odious 
synonyme  of  "Tory,"  "Hartford  Conventionist,"  or 
"Blue-light  man" ;  and  most  who  had  once  been  proud 
of  the  name  wished  it  dropped. 

Monroe's  tour  served  to  obliterate  these  old  party 
distinctions,  so  that  for  a  time  even  the  rising  "Demo 
crat"  was  forgotten.  To  national  issues  succeeded 
State  or  local  ones,  scarcely  a  basis  being  afforded  for 
consolidating  political  differences.  To  say  that  the 
old  parties  amalgamated  at  this  era  would  be  inaccu 
rate  :  it  was  rather  that  they  now  disbanded,  permitting 
those  in  the  ranks  to  turn  to  private  concerns.  They 
who  lived  by  politics,  however,  still  warred  as  they 
might  for  its  patronage. 


Among  issues  of  the  day  which  threatened  new  po 
litical  combinations,  that  of  internal  improvements  de 
serves  further  mention.  With  society  sweetened  in  its 
harmonious  intercourse,  we  had  turned  already  as  by 


174         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

a  common  impulse  to  great  undertakings,  of  which  the 
Erie  canal  seemed  at  this  hour  the  most  gigantic. 
Throughout  America  new  roads,  new  canals,  new  edi 
fices,  were  projected.  To  meet  this  enormous  outlay 
and  competition,  the  State,  the  public,  would  be  urged 
to  subscribe,  if  not  to  shoulder  the  enterprise.  Admit 
ting,  however,  the  right  of  a  State  legislature  in  the 
premises,  how  stood  it  with  Congress  and  the  national 
government?  For  the  extension  of  roads  and  canals 
beyond  State  limits,  so  as  to  knit  remote  parts  of  the 
Union  together,  was  by  all  conceded  to  be  a  national 
benefit.  One  of  Madison's  last  official  acts  was  to 
negative  a  bill  which  proposed  setting  apart  a  national 
fund  for  internal  improvements.  The  Executive  objec 
tion  being  the  constitutional  one,  a  dissension  now  arose 
in  the  Republican  ranks;  many  leaders,  in  their  eager 
ness  to  commit  the  general  treasury  to  projects,  popular 
in  their  own  State,  whose  cost  its  legislature  dared  not 
assume,  acceding  to  that  liberal  construction  of  national 
powers  for  which  Hamilton  and  the  Federalists  had 
earlier  contended;  while  others  held  to  Jefferson  and 
the  old  Virginia  doctrine  that  the  federal  constitution 
conferred  a  delegated  authority  from  the  States  or  the 
people  which  should  be  strictly  interpreted.  The  main 
question  was  whether  to  place  a  broad  or  narrow  con 
struction  upon  that  phrase  of  the  instrument  which 
gives  Congress  authority  to  lay  taxes  "to  pay  the  debts 
and  provide  for  the  general  welfare,"  so  as  to  extend  or 
not  the  powers  specifically  enumerated  to  whatever 
would  promote  the  general  welfare. 


A  remarkable  man  now  emerges  from  brief  retire 
ment  into  conspicuous  notice,  to  fix  more  constantly 


JACKSON'S  POPULARITY  175 

the  public  gaze,  and  even  concentrate  it,  until  recog 
nized  as  the  roost  striking  American  of  the  age,  and  in 
a  certain  sense  the  most  popular,  if  not  the  most  illus 
trious.  For  whatever  Jackson  might  do,  were  it  done 
rightly  or  wrongly,  he  threw  himself  vigorously^  into 
the  act,  and  made  a  deep  impression,  often  a  sensation, 
such,  probably,  as  he  studied  to  produce.  As  the  hero 
of  New  Orleans  and  conqueror  of  the  Creeks,  he  en 
joyed  already  the  best  military  renown  of  all  our 
generals  who  had  served  in  the  second  war,  because  the 
only  one  of  them  all  who  had  won  a  brilliant  victory. 
Peace  did  not  find  him  first  in  actual  rank,  however, 
nor  was  his  reputation  derived  from  that  trying  test 
against  a  skilful  foe,  which  exacts  the  steady  discipline 
of  forces  in  hand,  profound  insight,  a  mind  capable  of 
combining  and  of  studying  the  intricate  combinations  of 
others,  an  executive  grasp  of  the  thousand  minute  de 
tails  involved  in  feeding,  equipping,  and  moving  a 
large  army  separated  into  detachments,  and,  above  all, 
self-command  under  difficulties.  No  one,  perhaps,  ex 
cept  Washington  and  Hamilton,  had  as  yet  on  this  con 
tinent  fulfilled  the  ideal  of  commander;  certainly  none 
during  the  late  war,  whose  military  exploits  furnished 
as  much  for  blushing  as  boasting ;  though  Jacob  Brown, 
now  the  ranking  general,  and  certainly  a  well-deserving 
hero,  displayed  a  bureau  capacity  for  times  of  peace 
which  few  would  have  conceded  to  one  .so  .rash^so  un-_ 
learned,  and  withal  so  little  used  to  conventional  fprms 
as  Jackson.  Nevertheless,  this  one  had  addressed  him 
self  To  TKe  humbler  task  of  subduing  savages  or  defend 
ing  a  city  with  an  audacity,  zeal,  and  fertility  of  re 
source  deserving  of  wicfeF  opportunities ;  aricThe  alone 
could  have  said,  with  Caesar,  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  con 
quered." 


1 76         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Here  let  us  remark,  that  between  the  two  great  lead 
ers  of  the  American  democracy,  as  developed  down  to 
the  era  of  the  civil  war  of  1861,  the  earlier  and  the  later, 
cordiality  never  existed ;  each  seems  never  to  have  appre 
ciated  the  other,  and  certainly  the  younger  never  ac 
knowledged  himself  a  disciple.  The  passing  conjunction 
of  two  natures,  powerful  and  original,  but  singularly  in 
harmonious,  and  never  brought  into  practical  co-opera 
tion,  explains  this  antipathy;  for  antipathy  it  must  be 
called.  Jefferson  and  Jackson  first  met  in  1 797  at  Phil 
adelphia,  the  temporary  capital ;  the  one  Vice-President 
elect,  and  the  recognized  leader  of  a  party  which  ex 
ulted  in  the  first  flush  of  national  victory,  persuading 
his  friends  to  give  Washington  a  generous  exit;  the 
other  new  to  politics  and  the  polite  constraints  of  so 
ciety,  a  sullen  nobody  of  that  party,  sitting  in  the  Sen 
ate  like  a  cynic  in  his  tub,  shaggy  and  uncouth  in  ap 
pearance,  who  doggedly  refused  to  offer  incense  to  the 
retiring  President.  And  thus  it  went  on  for  the  brief 
remnant  of  Jackson's  first  sojourn  in  national  politics ; 
the  urbane  president  of  the  Senate  watching  with 
amusement  a  member  who  was  so  choleric  and  ill  at 
ease  that  when  he  rose  to  speak  the  words  choked  in  his 
throat.  Jackson,  in  fact,  was  not  cut  out  to  figure  in 
a  deliberative  body  of  dignified  men ;  and  the  turning- 
point  of  his  career  came  when  Tennessee  made  this 
toughest  of  her  pioneers,  at  the  age  of  34,  a  major- 
general  of  State  militia.  Jefferson,  then,  was  of  the 
upper  stratum  in  republican  politics,  Jackson  of  the 
lower;  the  one  of  good  blood  and  inherited  fortune, 
seeming  to  stoop  that  he  might  serve  the  multitude; 
the  other  a  man  of  the  multitude,  and  of  those  jealous 
democrats,  moreover,  who  envied  the  nobly  born;  in 
deed,  a  southern  white  of  extrartinn  so  hnmh1p;  that 


JACKSON  AND  JEFFERSON         177 

to  this  day  it  is  a  matter  of  dispute  whether  he  was  born 
in  North  or  South  Carolina.  In  Jefferson  appeared 
tact,  the  desire  to  convince,  and  a  persevering  good 
humor;  Jackson,  on  the  other  hand,  though  persever 
ing,  was  only  good  humored  while  he  had  his  own  way, 
could  be  influenced  by  those  alone  who  knew  how  to 
play  upon  his  vanity,  and  was  satisfied  when  he  com 
pelled.  Jefferson  was  smooth  and  diplomatic,  Jackson 
dogged  and  downright.  The  one  belonged  to  that 
older  school  of  our  politics  which  separates  public  from 
private  friendships,  puts  the  trustworthy  and  capable 
first,  and  remits  each  who  serves  to  his  proper  place; 
but  with  th^Jatter  the  main  theory  was  to  make  both 
public  and  private  friendship  consist  in  personal  at 
tachment  to  himself,  and  use  patronage  as  the  rich 
spoils  of  martial  victory. 

While  these  two  remarkable  men,  remained  in  con 
tact,  the  one  was  the  idol  of  his  party,  and  kept  the 
reins  of  national  discipline,  while  the  other  idp.lizedhno 
one,  preferring  the  easy  surroundings  of  frontier  life 
and  to  rise  in  wealth  and  consequence  with  his  adopted. 
State.  His  choice  was  discreet  for  his  personal  ad 
vancement;  for  Tennessee  long  clung  to  her  favorite 
son,  and  Jackson's  devoted  band  advanced  him  with  un 
flagging  zeal  in  the  teeth  of  a  formidable  prejudice,  in 
herited  from  our  colonial  ancestors,  in  favor  of  trained 
statesmanship  and  social  culture  as  essential  qualifica 
tions  for  high  public  trusts. 


By  the  time  Congress  re-assembled  in  November, 
1818,  Andrew  Jackson  was  of  all  Americans  the  man 
universally  discussed.  So  rude  was  the  shock  given 
of  late  to  republican  susceptibilities  by  his  exploits  in 


178         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Florida,*  whose  outcome  might  yet  be  a  European  war, 
that  the  public  mind  was  still  bewildered ;  many  ques 
tioned  the  right,  more  the  propriety  of  his  acts;  but 
the  course  taken  by  our  administration  aided  a  lenient 
public  judgment,  while  the  shouts  of  Tennessee  and 
the  far  west,  proclaiming  Jackson  a  genuine  hero,  the 
coming  man,  rolled  over  the  Alleghanies,  and  mingled 
with  the  thundering  surfs  of  the  Atlantic.  The  gen 
eral  mass  will  quickly  sympathize  with  him  who  has 
dared  in  the  common  cause;  nor  in  those  days,  while 
the  bitterness  of  the  late  war  lingered,  was  the  Amer 
ican  democracy  likely  to  idolize  the  less  one  who  em 
bodied  in  himself  those  traits  which  awaken  enthusi 
asm  because  he  had  executed  two  Britishers  and  two 
Red  Stick  chiefs  with  impartial  contempt.  An  extraor 
dinary  man,  indeed,  had  arisen  at  the  west;  the  story 
of  his  life  was  asked,  his  services  at  New  Orleans  were 
recalled;  and  to  become  in  this  country  the  theme  of 
national  discussion,  compelling  with  so  much  public 
curiosity  such  genuine  admiration,  meant  of  necessity 
to  be  canvassed  by  the  politicians  for  the  Presidency. 


Tenderly  and  sacredly  as  our  Revolutionary  sires 
were  now  treated  by  those  whose  career  emblazons  the 
annals  of  1812,  and  whose  anxiety  to  wipe  away  the 
last  stain  of  filial  reproach  appeared  so  manifest,  pos 
terity  has  not  in  its  turn  rendered  to  them  such  decent 
offices.  Whatever  the  merits  of  those  who  conducted 
the  second  struggle  of  American  Independence,  and  the 
undoubted  service  they  rendered  in  severing  this  coun 
try  from  Europe,  they  never  reached  the  same  high 

*This  was  during  the  recent  conflict  known  as  the  "Seminole 
war." 


A  NATIONAL  SENTIMENT          179 

plane  of  aesthetic  honors.  The  poverty  of  subjects  for 
the  artist's  pencil,  which  essays  in  vain  to  poetize  frig 
ates  fighting  a  duel  in  mid-ocean,  or  long  ranks  resting 
their  rifles  upon  cotton  breastworks,  may  in  part  ac 
count  for  this;  and  of  the  few  scenes  which,  well  de 
picted,  ought  to  stir  the  depths  of  a  loyal  heart,  Perry's 
victory  alone  has  yet  been  attempted  with  anything 
approaching  success.  A  weightier  explanation  is  found 
in  the  levelling  effect  of  our  modern  institutions  and  the 
development  of  a  national  temperament  less  susceptible 
than  formerly  to  patriotic  impressions ;  moreover,  in  the 
long-divided  sentiment  which  has  prevailed  among 
Americans  themselves  respecting  the  justifying  causes 
of  this  second  war,  and  as  to  whether  the  United  States 
had  really  gained  by  it.  That  the  war  was  both  justi 
fiable  on  principle  and  advantageous  in  fact, — crowned, 
indeed,  with  blessings  far  greater  than  immediately  ap 
peared,  and  only  to  be  reproved  as  rashly  undertaken, — 
history  must  admit;  nevertheless,  the  first  struggle 
of  1776  burns  with  more  of  the  celestial  fire,  nor 
has  America  ever  produced  but  one  commander  who, 
like  Washington,  embodied  the  cause  for  which  he 
fought. 

With  this  new  buoyancy  of  republican  and  New- 
World  ideas,  this  spontaneous  impulse  given  to  our 
national  character,  there  mingled  somewhat  of  a  lofty 
and  pitying  scorn  for  Europe  and  the  Old- World  insti 
tutions.  Our  American  people  felt  that  they  had  a  coun 
try  of  their  own;  and  proudly  did  they  boast  of  that 
country  at  this  moment,  as  they  drew  unflattering  com 
parisons.  What  would  become  of  exhausted  and  bank 
rupt  Europe,  now  waking  from  the  dream  of  imperial 
ism,  its  rulers  and  people  alike  beggared  and  hastening 
to  decay,  its  restored  monarchs  searching  for  the  gew- 


1 80         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

gaws  of  infallibility,  the  legitimate  scions  of  the  aristoc 
racy  rearing  illegitimate  offspring?  Ferdinand  was  a 
despot  without  resources,  the  royal  Bourbons  of  France 
puppets  of  an  armed  alliance  who  pulled  the  wires,  the 
acting  King  of  England  a  drunkard  and  libertine,  and 
its  actual  one  a  hopeless  imbecile.  The  age  of  barbar 
ism  had  commenced  in  the  Old  World,  and  some  mas 
ter-spirit  would  end  it.  But  here,  in  the  New  World, 
the  sovereign  people,  fearing  neither  priestcraft  nor 
kingcraft,  made  equal  laws  and  lived  by  them.  Those 
laws  appealed  to  the  whole  human  race  in  the  spirit  of 
universal  philanthropy.  If  the  Indian  remained  an 
outcast  and  the  negro  a  slave,  their  fate,  nevertheless, 
could  not  involve  that  of  our  glorious  inheritance. 
Here,  on  freedom's  natal  day,  confusion  to  tyrants  was 
the  toast;  success,  moreover,  to  our  South  American 
brethren-in-arms,  and  to  Bolivar,  just  emerging  from 
exile  to  be  their  great  deliverer.  Happy  was  America, 
no  longer  shackled,  no  longer  in  superstitious  bondage. 
Here  on  these  shores  was  found  the  Elysium  for  the  op 
pressed  of  all  climes,  liberty's  safe-harbor,  the  land  of 
peace  and  plenty. 


The  period  of  1819-20  was  one  of  great  depression 
and  distress.  Many  a  one  who  had  lately  been  inde 
pendent  and  thrifty  lost  by  misplaced  confidence  in  some 
bank  or  through  the  failure  of  a  friend  whose  notes  he 
had  indorsed,  or  a  brother,  son,  or  father  who  must  be 
shielded  from  imprisonment.  They  who  went  surety 
for  others  smarted  for  it.  Even  for  him  who  stood 
clear,  the  maxim  was  to  hoard  and  wait.  Trade  was 
for  the  present  prostrate  and  profitless ;  and  capital 
which  had  earned  ten  per  cent,  on  good  security  had 


FINANCIAL  DISTRESS  181 

to  content  itself  with  four  or  five.  Benton,  whose  im 
pressions  were  derived  at  the  far  west,  has  recalled  these 
years  as  an  era  of  gloom  and  agony ;  with  no  price  for 
produce  and  property,  no  sales  except  by  the  marshal 
and  sheriff,  and  no  purchaser  except  the  creditor  and 
some  hoarder  of  money ;  with  stop  laws,  property  laws, 
replevin  laws,  stay  laws,  the  intervention  between  debtor 
and  creditor,  constituting  the  chief  business  of  legisla 
tion;  with  no  medium  of  exchange  except  depreciated 
paper,  and  inland  exchanges  utterly  deranged.  Even 
silver  change  was  scarce  in  these  days;  and  while  at 
the  chief  centres  of  trade  prices  were  accommodated 
to  the  small  Spanish  6j4  and  12^/2  cent  coins,  little 
tickets  or  bits  of  foul  paper,  marked  with  numerals  and 
signed  by  the  baker  or  grocer,  served  as  fractional  cur 
rency  in  the  remote  interior.  All  this  prevailing  dis 
tress  gave  of  necessity  an  acrid  flavor  to  whatever  pub 
lic  question  might  provoke  a  controversy,  as  we  shall 
presently  see.  But  we  find  it  alleviated  by  that  spirit  of 
voluntary  and  sympathetic  co-operation  which  is  after 
all  the  excellent  trait  of  our  republican  life;  co-opera 
tion  in  present  succor  for  the  unfortunate,  in  benevolent 
works,  in  devising  the  intelligent  means  of  recuperat 
ing. 


For  the  present,  and,  indeed,  during  Monroe's  long 
administration  through  two  terms,  Spain  and  Spanish 
American  affairs  supplied  the  chief,  in  fact,  almost  the 
only  element  of  excitement  in  our  foreign  relations.  A 
few  niggardly  favors  reciprocated  with  other  European 
powers  for  the  passing  benefit  of  commerce,  other  more 
tangible  advantages  sought  on  our  behalf  but  refused, 
— this  tells  the  rest  of  the  tale  of  diplomacy.  But  the 


1 8i         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

absorption  of  Spanish  territory  in  our  Union  under  the 
Florida  treaty,  and  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  South 
American  colonies,  aroused  the  passions  of  the  hour; 
and  European  countries  and  the  United  States  keenly 
watched  the  progress  of  the  patriot  struggle  in  the 
southern  continent,  not  only  with  those  diverse  sympa 
thies  which  result  from  political  differences  of  creed, 
but  with  the  consciousness  of  diverse  interests,  such  as 
might  eventually  lead  neutral  powers  into  rival  combi 
nations,  sooner  or  later,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
about  the  differing  results  hoped  for.  Spain  was  at  this 
juncture  mistress  neither  of  the  situation  nor  herself; 
nevertheless,  mutual  conferences  of  the  allied  powers 
which  had  brought  the  European  war  to  a  successful 
close  dictated  her  course  as  to  Spanish  America,  at  the 
same  time  checkmating  the  schemes  of  one  another.  In 
these  conferences  England  took  the  lead,  and  to  make 
that  lead  the  more  positive  in  favor  of  a  solution  which, 
well  worked  out,  promised  a  decided  enlargement  of 
British  commerce  with  the  New  World,  her  ministry 
favored  more  and  more  the  idea  of  fellowship  and 
a  friendly  co-operation  with  the  United  States;  for 
we  were  a  rising  power  whose  interests  and  feelings 
tended,  like  those  of  our  mother-country,  to  counteract 
those  of  narrow-minded  continental  sovereigns  who 
were  jealous  of  great  navies  and  stubbornly  opposed 
to  all  governments  which  professed  a  leaning  to  public 
opinion. 


Before  entering  upon  the  narrative  of  the  Missouri 
controversy  and  its  immediate  results,  let  us  briefly 
sketch  the  progress  of  our  anti-slavery  cause  to  1819. 
There  had  been  no  serious  agitation  of  the  dreaded  topic 


AMERICAN  SLAVERY  183 

since  the  African  slave  trade  was  abolished  in  1808. 
With  that  unanimous  and  happy  fulfilment  of  a  consti 
tutional  opportunity,  patriots  would  fain  have  thought 
their  duty  done,  and  trusted  the  rest  to  a  favoring  Prov 
idence,  whose  approval  they  felt.  But  to  stop  the  sup 
ply  of  Africans  from  abroad  was  like  clipping  but  one 
root  from  a  weed  which  was  still  strongly  imbedded 
in  the  soil,  and  might  grow  and  propagate  in  other  di 
rections.  The  population  of  the  United  States  in 
creased  after  the  act  of  1808,  as  previously,  at  an  aver 
age  rate  of  about  one-third  in  ten  years;  and  if  the 
whites  had  multiplied  in  numbers  during  the  last  decade 
the  blacks  themselves  had  kept  not  uneven  pace.  Con 
fronted  with  this  inner  phase  of  the  unsolved  problem, 
the  philanthropic  spirit  of  the  age  turned,  after  war 
had  ceased,  to  the  possibilities  of  amalgamation,  or,  as 
more  fairly  styled,  political  incorporation,  which  Jef 
ferson  and  his  school  of  benefactors  had  always  treated 
with  a  tender  abhorrence.  What  was  to  be  the  ultimate 
relation  of  the  black  and  white  races  should  they 
grow  on  together  under  the  progressive  institutions  of 
a  republic  surely  great  in  destiny?  Or  could  those 
races,  together  with  the  red,  become  so  disconnected 
as  to  leave  to  Americans  not  only  a  white  man's  gov 
ernment,  but  a  white  man's  country? 

One  point  had  always  been  ceded  without  contention : 
namely,  that  each  of  the  original  States,  and  of  those 
others  since  admitted  into  the  Union,  unfettered  by 
fundamental  restraints  imposed  by  Congress,  was  sov 
ereign  over  the  institution  within  its  own  borders.  The 
State  could  abolish  or  perpetuate  slavery  at  discretion 
where  it  already  existed,  besides  regulating  the  condi 
tion  of  blacks  within  the  jurisdiction,  whether  bond  or 
free.  Accepting  this  premise,  the  free  States  had  loy- 


1 84         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ally  refrained  from  trespassing  upon  the  rights  of  those 
already  wedded  to  slavery ;  a  conscience-smitten  minor 
ity  of  their  inhabitants  resorting  perhaps  to  mild  re 
monstrance  and  exhortation,  but  the  majority  justify 
ing  apathy  and  inaction  by  putting  the  national  respon 
sibility  upon  the  planters,  somewhat  as  did  planters  of 
the  day  themselves  upon  their  British  ancestors.  More 
than  this,  fugitive  slaves  who  escaped  into  a  free  State 
were  surrendered  on  the  claim  of  the  white  owner; 
not  without  some  pang  of  remorse,  we  may  be  sure,  nor 
without  a  lurking  fear  lest  some  free  black  should  be 
smuggled,  because  of  his  skin,  into  bondage;  but  for 
the  imperious  reason  that  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  the  charter  of  our  own  liberties,  must  be  obeyed. 
And  yet  while  fugitive  slave  laws  might  have  been  pro 
nounced  in  1789,  or  when  that  constitution  went  into 
effect,  as  really  for  the  general  benefit  of  adjacent 
States,  a  singular  geographical  change  had  since  taken 
place.  In  fact,  the  original  lines  had  since  become  so 
contracted  while  we  pushed  westward  to  the  Missis 
sippi,  that  at  present,  thirty  years  later,  an  anti-slavery 
and  pro-slavery  tier  of  States  confronted  one  another 
from  behind  a  long  parallel ;  a  real  presage  that  when 
obedience  to  the  constitution  became  sullen,  those  laws 
would  be  trampled  on,  and  two  sections  of  the  Union, 
socially  dissimilar  and  even  repugnant,  would  occupy 
a  relative  attitude  surely  inviting  civil  war  and  blood 
shed.  The  anti-slavery  band  of  States  voluntarily 
choosing  freedom  was  already  completed;  New  York 
having  in  1817  proclaimed  the  total  abolition  of  slavery 
within  its  borders  to  be  completed  by  July  4,  1827.  So 
on  the  other  side  had  the  pro-slavery  States  drawn 
closer  together,  united  by  common  traditions,  common 
blood,  and  the  common  pursuit  of  staple  agriculture 


AMERICAN  SLAVERY  185 

through  the  great  South,  to  protect,  if  not  propagate, 
a  system  which  they  knew  the  voice  of  modern  civiliza 
tion  condemned,  but  which  to  them  meant  for  the  pres 
ent  social  order,  stability,  property,  life  itself,  and  the 
means  of  living.  For  the  Union  had  never  said  to  a 
State,  "Emancipate  and  we  will  indemnify  you;" 
but  "Emancipate  and  bear  your  own  loss."  There 
was  a  southern  conscience ;  nevertheless  the  dread  of  an 
unshared  impoverishment  in  order  to  please  mankind 
stifled  its  voice. 

Abolition  by  sovereign  will  of  a  slave  State  now 
ceased,  and  as  for  enslavement  by  a  free  State's  legisla 
tion,  this  had  never  been  attempted.  Mild  persuasion 
had  done  its  work.  Freedom  called  her  roll  at  the 
north ;  slavery  hers  at  the  south ;  and  compulsion  on  the 
national  behalf  being  impossible,  the  Union  left  each 
section,  or  rather  each  sovereign  member  thereof,  to  its 
own  independent  action;  limiting  national  exertions, 
first  to  making  good  the  slave-trade  prohibition,  and 
next  to  forfending  slavery  from  the  soil  of  our  virgin 
territories ;  for  thus  did  the  constitution  as  it  stood  cir 
cumscribe  Congress. 

To  the  natural  instinct  which  had  drawn  together 
so  closely  the  southern  staple-producing  States  for  mu 
tual  protection  was  added  a  propagating  zeal  now  dis 
played  by  enthusiasts  of  that  section,  and  much  stimu 
lated  of  late  by  the  immense  consumption  of  cotton  and 
cotton  fabrics  in  the  world's  market.  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  and  the  adjacent  States  fed  those  noisy  spin 
dles  which  in  the  mother-country  and  here  multiplied 
so  rapidly  that  the  annual  production  ill  satisfied  their 
hungry  maw.  The  advanced  price  of  cotton  and  other 
staples,  such  as  rice  and  sugar,  which  necessitated  toil 
in  the  broiling  sun  and  exposure  such  as  only  blacks 


1 86         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

could  well  endure,  had  created,  therefore,  an  unprece 
dented  demand  for  suitable  lands  for  their  culture  and 
suitable  laborers  to  till  them. 

Hence  an  obvious  tendency  in  States  thus  interested 
to  band  together,  not  only  with  a  fixed  purpose  to  resist 
emancipation,  but  so  as  to  procure  slaves  wherever  they 
might  without  open  offence  to  other  Christian  commu 
nities.  Hence,  too,  an  invention  by  the  staple  raiser  of 
various  sophistries  which  might  prop  up  the  institution 
and  palliate  the  guilt  of  slaveholding,  if  guilt  it  must  be 
called ;  none  of  them  at  this  time  more  popular  or  more 
pernicious  than  that  to  spread  our  domestic  slavery  over 
a  larger  surface  of  land  would  alleviate  the  mischief. 
For,  conceding  with  Jefferson  that  to  move  a  slave  from 
one  State  to  another  would  make  no  slave  of  a  human 
being  who  was  not  a  slave  before,  what  must  be  the 
logical  result  of  spreading  the  contagious  ambition,  or 
rather  the  social  necessity,  of  being  a  white  slaveholder, 
through  new  settlements,  but  to  further  the  propagation 
of  slaves,  in  order  to  gratify  that  ambition  or  social  ne 
cessity?  And  admitting  an  increased  propagation, 
who  will  ask  whether  the  supply  comes  by  breeding  or 
importation  ? 

It  deserves,  however,  to  be  said  of  a  statesman  whose 
influence  in  moulding  American  character  was  so  re 
markable  that  even  his  erroneous  maxims,  of  which 
this  was  one,  crept  into  common  speech,  that  Jefferson 
did  not  to  his  dying  day  cease  to  deplore  the  existence 
of  slavery,  nor  did  he  believe  in  African  colonization 
as  an  adequate  means  of  ridding  the  United  States  of 
the  system.  To  him  the  association  which  prosecuted 
this  undertaking  was  no  more  than  a  missionary  so 
ciety,  having  humane  and  unaggressive  ends.  Those 
ends  theoretically  he  favored;  and  emancipation  still 


MISSOURI  CONTROVERSY          187 

captivated  his  fancy,  notwithstanding  the  alluring  in 
fluences  of  plantation  surroundings  benumbed  his  judg 
ment,  and  he  became  less  of  an  abolitionist  to  be  more 
of  a  southerner. 


We  are  now  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  narrative  of 
the  Missouri  controversy,  precursor  by  two  generations 
of  probably  the  grandest  and  saddest  civil  strife  re 
corded  in  the  annals  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Fought 
out  and  settled  upon  the  legislative  arena  at  Washing 
ton,  though  agitating  our  whole  people  meanwhile,  this 
earlier  controversy  covered  three  distinct  spaces  of 
time:  (i)  The  second  session  of  the  I5th  Congress; 
(2)  the  first  session;  and  (3)  the  second  session  of  the 
1 6th  Congress.  The  immediate  question  at  issue  con 
cerned  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union  as  a 
State,  released  from  territorial  constraints.  But  under 
the  circumstances  this  question  involved  another  of 
transcendent  magnitude;  namely,  whether  the  great 
northwest  territory  comprised  in  the  Louisiana  pur 
chase  should  be  consecrated  to  freedom  or  desecrated 
by  slavery.  For  as  the  case  stood  at  the  outset,  were 
Missouri  now  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  with  per 
missive  slavery,  simply  because  a  majority  of  its  inhab 
itants  so  desired,  Congress  abdicated  all  constitutional 
control  in  this  respect  over  territory  purchased  and  paid 
for  by  the  United  States,  in  favor  of  a  sort  of  squatter 
sovereignty  among  the  settlers. 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  a  stern  mo-       1820. 
rality,  the  Missouri  Compromise  must  be  pro 
nounced  a  surrender  to  the  slave  power,  the  cowardly 
abandonment  of  a  cause  and  occasion  for  which  north 
ern  men  might  as  well  have  drawn  the  sword  then  as  did 


1 88         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

their  posterity  forty  years  later.  But  this  point  of  view 
is  not  just  to  the  honor  and  statesmanship  of  the  times. 
The  political  evil  was  inherent  in  the  constitution  itself, 
which  brought  States  slaveholding  and  non-slavehold- 
ing  into  indissoluble  bonds,  providing  no  radical  means 
for  assimilating  their  condition.  The  anti-slavery  spirit 
of  1776  had  died  out,  or  rather  had  exhausted  its  power 
of  persuading  States  to  emancipate;  a  border  line  sep 
arated  already  the  free  and  slave  sections;  and  to  ex 
tend  that  line  beyond  the  Mississippi  and  ultimately  to 
the  Pacific  had  at  length  become  a  political  necessity, 
with  civil  war  for  the  only  alternative.  Latitude  36° 
30'  was  not  the  established  parallel  throughout,  though 
had  Virginia  followed  the  impulse  of  her  better  days 
it  might  have  been,  and  it  fairly  marked  the  division 
of  the  Union  at  the  cotton  belt.  In  procuring  the  es 
tablishment  of  that  parallel,  freedom  gained  the  first 
real  territorial  victory  it  had  won  since  the  adoption  of 
the  constitution;  for  the  renown  of  the  Ordinance  of 
1787  belongs  justly  to  the  old  Continental  Congress. 
This  was  a  victory  worth  all  the  agitation  it  cost,  and 
securing  a  new  northwest  territory  to  freedom. 
Whether  a  greater  area  might  not  have  been  rescued 
from  bondage  without  hazarding  fratricide  and  disunion 
we  cannot  assume  to  judge;  perhaps  the  north  would 
well  have  pressed  opposition  to  the  Missouri  bill  long 
enough  to  see  whether  the  south  would  not  yield  the 
whole  remnant  of  the  territory,  Arkansas  included ;  but 
it  is  certain  that  the  Trimble  amendment,  which  offered 
to  test  this  point,  was  voted  down  in  the  Senate.  Nor, 
in  justice  to  the  southern  compromisers,  should  the  am 
biguous  "forever,"  over  which  Monroe's  cabinet  dif 
fered  so  greatly,  be  taken  for  trickery.  Not  a  State  of 
this  Union  which  once  emancipated  ever  restored  sla- 


MISSOURI  COMPROMISE  189 

very  afterwards  or  made  serious  attempt  to  do  so ;  not 
one  of  the  new  States  carved  out  of  western  territory 
once  pledged  to  freedom  ever  deliberately  as  a  State 
broke  the  fundamental  terms  upon  which  its  admission 
was  granted.  The  real  mischiefs  which  the  Missouri 
Compromise  engendered  were  these :  the  strife  for  po 
litical  power  between  slavery  and  freedom  which  it 
sanctioned  and  perpetuated  upon  the  broad  national 
domain;  the  insatiate  appetite  for  foreign  acquisitions 
south  of  that  line,  whether  by  war  or  purchase,  which  it 
whetted ;  and  finally,  by  suffering  an  immense  State  like 
Missouri,  whose  population  near  the  confluence  of  the 
Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers  was  sure  to  increase 
rapidly,  to  be  set  above  the  geographical  latitude,  the 
license  it  gave  to  the  wolves  of  slavery  to  ravage  among 
the  scattered  free  soil  settlers  over  its  borders.  Never 
theless  this  sectional  compact  was  faithfully  sustained 
for  more  than  thirty  years ;  it  was  broken  at  length  not 
by  those  who  had  bound  themselves  to  keep  it,  but  by 
degenerate  sons  of  freedom,  by  disciples  also  of  the 
John  Randolph  school  who  constantly  stirred  the  south 
to  believe  that  slavery  should  accept  no  territorial  re 
straints  at  all.  That  perfidious  rupture,  as  our  later 
history  will  show,  brought  the  north  once  more  to  its 
feet,  as  no  other  aggression  of  its  rights  could  have 
done,  and  re-established  party  opposition  on  the  geo 
graphical  line;  the  south  once  more  opposing  its  solid 
phalanx,  for  the  preservation  of  its  common  interests, 
until  crushed  in  the  unequal  contest  thus  provoked. 
Slavery  and  slaveholders  went  down  in  the  dust  to 
gether,  and  the  American  constitution  became,  what  it 
never  had  been  before,  a  charter  of  universal  freedom. 


CHAPTER   XL 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  MONROE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Seventeenth  Congress.  March  4,  i82i-March  3, 
1823. — §  II.  Period  of  Eighteenth  Congress.  March  4,  1823- 
March  3,  1825. 

IN  Monroe  we  had  a  national  leader  to  whom  growth 
and  experience  meant  everything,  and  whose  ac 
quirements  as  a  statesman,  though  not  shining, 
were  solid.  He  was  ambitious  of  a  good  record;  he 
aimed  to  set  an  example;  but  at  the  same  time  he  was 
modest  for  his  personal  fame,  called  himself  an  instru 
ment,  and  cared  more  to  fulfil  than  be  a  figure.  He 
wrought  out  his  best  work  in  silence,  "investigating  by 
the  midnight  lamp  the  laws  of  nature  and  nations;" 
he  surrounded  himself  with  the  ablest  advisers,  sought 
their  counsel,  and  encouraged  their  confidence.  He  was 
at  this  last  and  best  epoch  of  his  long  public  career 
patient,  tolerant,  very  slow  but  remarkably  correct  in 
conclusions,  magnanimous  and  considerate.  As  chief 
magistrate  he  took  broad  and  lofty  views  of  public  pol 
icy  ;  as  a  man  he  was,  as  he  had  ever  been,  the  soul  of 
honor.  He  had  a  quiet  energy  in  directing  affairs. 
His  judgment,  fallible  enough  while  young  and  in  bad 
company,  had  at  length  ripened  into  something  like  ex 
cellence  of  discernment,  as  even  they  admitted  who  had 
affected  to  despise  his  talents.  Experience  and  singu 
lar  vicissitude,  so  far  from  curdling,  sweetened  a  tem- 


CHARACTER  OF  MONROE          191 

per  naturally  hasty  and  irritable,  and  his  justice  was 
always  tempered  with  mercy. 

Not  original  in  his  cast  of  mind,  and  always  liable 
to  be  underrated,  Monroe  owed  his  high  station  less  to 
dazzling  superiority  than  his  own  unflinching  persever 
ance;  something,  doubtless,  to  friendship  and  oppor 
tunity,  yet  more  to  that  sympathy  which  all  feel  when 
one  who  is  seen  to  fall  rises  again.  Often  had  he 
broken  his  wing  against  the  precipice  upon  which  he 
now  perched  so  serenely.  His  firmness  yielded  to  no 
obstacle,  and  his  ideal  of  statesmanship  was  constantly 
nobler. 

Of  Monroe's  traits,  these,  perhaps,  gave  to  his  ad 
ministration  its  chief  influence:  the  conscientious  per 
formance  of  official  duty,  magnanimity,  and  the  habit 
of  deliberation.  As  to  the  first,  all  are  familiar  with 
Jefferson's  description  of  him  as  one  whose  whole  soul 
might  be  turned  wrong  side  outward  without  discover 
ing  a  blemish  to  the  world.  Of  his  rare  magnanimity 
instances  are  scattered  through  this  whole  eight  years' 
record.  Daschkoff,  who  had  behaved  very  badly,  was 
graciously  treated  when  he  took  his  leave;  Crawford 
was  not  dropped;  Jackson's  indiscretions  were  lightly 
passed  over;  and  Clay,  after  four  years  of  factious  dis 
turbance,  had  to  own  an  act  of  unexpected  generosity. 
Indeed,  so  unsparing  a  critic  as  John  Quincy  Adams 
remarks  that  Monroe's  failings  leaned  to  virtue's  side, 
that  he  indulged  everybody,  was  scrupulously  regardful 
of  individual  feeling,  and  exercised  too  reluctantly  the 
power  of  harsh  discipline  and  censure.  He  certainly 
was  open  and  unsuspecting,  and  betrayed  a  sensation 
of  pain  whenever  misconduct  in  those  about  him  was 
pointed  out.  But  he  was  so  solicitous  not  to  use  the 
public  patronage  as  his  own  that  many  said  of  him  that 


192         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

he  had  appointed  his  enemies  to  office  in  preference  to 
his  friends. 

Long  used  though  he  had  been  to  public  affairs,  and 
robust  in  constitution,  Monroe  worried  much  in  private 
over  difficult  problems  or  a  passing  discontent.  He  did 
not  easily  throw  off  official  burdens,  and  when  a 
weighty  matter  of  state  was  pending  the  counsellor  who 
called  could  not  divert  his  mind;  for  he  would  revert 
to  the  subject  still  uppermost,  and  take  new  advice  upon 
its  present  bearings,  leaving  the  lighter  business  to  wait, 
instead  of  dispatching  all  together.  Many  a  lonely  and 
serious  hour  did  Monroe  pass  when  troubled  or  per 
plexed,  veiling  the  deeper  sufferings  of  his  sensitive 
nature  from  the  world.  Nevertheless  he  hid  his 
wounds  as  a  chief  magistrate  should;  and  though  wa 
vering  often  while  making  up  his  mind,  he  was  firm 
when  the  decision  was  taken.  He  came  to  a  conclusion 
at  last,  and  then  stood  fearlessly  by  the  consequences. 
"He  had,"  says  Calhoun,  "a  wonderful  intellectual  pa 
tience,  and  could,  above  all  men  that  I  ever  knew,  when 
called  on  to  decide  on  an  important  point,  hold  the  sub 
ject  immovably  fixed  under  his  attention  till  he  had 
mastered  it  in  all  its  relations.  It  was  mainly  to  this 
admirable  quality  that  he  owed  his  highly  accurate  judg 
ment.  I  have  known  many  much  more  rapid  in  reach 
ing  the  conclusion,  but  very  few  with  a  certainty  so  un 
erring." 

Standing,  nevertheless,  like  a  breakwater,  between 
the  passions  of  an  earlier  and  later  epoch,  it  cannot  be 
thought  strange  if  the  fibre  of  Monroe's  greatness 
should  not  in  our  day  be  well  known  or  appreciated. 
Even  contemporaries  who  recalled  him  as  a  devoted 
and  often  indiscreet  partisan  in  early  life,  an  anti-Fed 
eralist  in  1787,  one  so  enthusiastic  in  1795  over  the 


MONROE'S  APPEARANCE  193 

French  republic  as  to  join  in  the  fraternal  accolade,  now 
petulant,  now  despondent,  now  almost  vindictive,  were 
slow  to  believe  that  he  had  grown  into  so  great  a  man. 
But  his  soundness  was  fundamental  and  its  secret 
spring  diligent  application. 

Monroe,  though  liberally  educated,  was  no  scholar. 
His  tastes  inclined  neither  to  literature  nor  philosophy, 
but  were  absorbed  in  politics.  He  read  few  books  on 
light  subjects,  but  learned  chiefly  from  personal  experi 
ence  and  intercourse  among  men,  and  was  most  inter 
ested  in  whatever  might  subserve  the  immediate  pur 
pose.  During  his  long  service  at  home  and  abroad  he 
had  made  himself  familiar  with  the  affairs  of  Europe 
and  his  own  country.  Among  ideas  presented  and  the 
motives  for  offering  them,  he  discriminated  admirably. 
One  found  him  in  conversation  agreeable  but  not  strik 
ing,  slightly  reserved,  often  grave,  and  in  fact  preoccu 
pied  with  his  official  cares.  He  wrote  kindly  and  dis 
creetly  in  his  private  letters,  but  seldom  in  a  lively 
strain,  unless  vindication  of  motives  was  the  object,  and 
then  he  was  almost  eloquent.  Of  official  documents  he 
prepared  many,  full  of  argument,  at  times  very  able,  but 
devoid  of  imagination  and  often  prosy. 

At  this  interval  of  sixty  years  or  more,  scarce  a  tra 
dition  can  be  found  as  to  how  Monroe  looked,  what  he 
said  unofficially,  or  how  he  conducted  himself;  and 
yet  he  made  extensive  tours  while  President,  and 
was  seen  and  beloved  by  all.  Cabinet  advisers  pre 
serve  executive  traits,  it  is  true,  but  scarcely  more. 
The  inference  is  that  there  was  nothing  odd,  nothing 
striking  about  his  manners  or  personal  appearance. 
Living  for  nearly  fifteen  consecutive  years  at  Washing 
ton  city,  either  as  Secretary  or  President,  he  passed 
from  prime  to  old  age  in  the  midst  of  its  inhabitants. 


194         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

By  these  he  is  best  recalled  as  a  handsome  man  of  tall, 
erect  figure  and  placid  mien,  who  rode  every  day  on 
horseback  with  a  colored  groom  after  him;  his  dress  a 
drab  suit,  with  light  pantaloons  reaching  to  the  knees, 
a  dark  beaver  hat  and  white  top  boots.  His  hair  was 
cut  short  in  front  and  powdered  and  gathered  into  a 
queue  behind,  and  his  face  smoothly  shaved  after  the 
custom  of  olden  times.  For  evening  costume  he  wore 
various  suits,  after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  tending, 
however,  to  the  old  style,  as  became  one  of  his  years 
and  station.  He  was  strongly  built,  broad-shouldered, 
and  in  younger  days  could  bear  great  strain  without 
fatigue. 

A  favorite  picture  represents  Monroe  in  his  prime, 
enveloped  in  a  dark,  high-cut  coat  of  the  period,  with 
rolling  and  indented  collar,  a  waistcoat  edged  with  buff 
lining,  and  an  ample  white  neck-cloth  spreading  its 
folds  over  his  chest.  The  face  wears  a  mild,  patient, 
and  yet  almost  sad  expression,  indicating  the  struggle 
of  a  nervous  temperament;  the  eyes,  nearly  blue,  look 
from  the  canvas  with  kindness  more  than  penetration ; 
and  the  small,  close  mouth  and  dimpled  chin  learning 
to  be  firm,  the  smooth  face,  the  high  but  not  expansive 
forehead  and  delicate  features,  all  bespeak  a  refinement 
of  nature.  Later  in  life  his  appearance  is  said  to  have 
been  less  romantic  and  prepossessing.  Stouter,  more 
florid,  inclined  to  stoop,  his  stature  by  the  last  years  of 
his  Presidency  might  have  seemed  quite  moderate. 
His  dress  is  now  described  as  a  little  rusty,  and  his 
countenance  wilted  with  age  and  study  and  care ;  while, 
in  a  forehead  deeply  furrowed,  which  the  hair,  as  worn, 
partly  hid,  appeared  two  distinct  arches  over  the  eyes, 
which  glimmered  sleepily  from  within  their  large  sock 
ets.  Indeed,  Monroe's  last  years  were  full  of  care  and 


WASHINGTON  IN  1821  195 

anxiety,  and  at  seventy  he  seemed  fourscore.  But 
those  manners  which  neither  captivated  nor  overawed 
were  the  same  at  his  last  White  House  reception  as  long 
years  back,  when  governor  of  Virginia;  and  the  same 
awkward  but  assiduous  courtesy  which  the  "British 
Spy"  had  remarked,  was  visible  through  all  the  polish 
of  courtly  life;  affording  one  proof  among  many  that 
Monroe  never  could  outgrow  his  native  simplicity. 


The  reader  is  not  to  measure  the  festivities  of  this 
raw  little  metropolis,  which  brought  together  so  at 
tractive  a  winter  society  from  all  parts  of  the  Union, 
by  the  standard  of  its  own  diluted  and  even  desolate 
grandeur.  Though  it  slowly  grew  and  clambered  up 
the  great  trellis  placed  for  its  reception,  like  some  neg 
lected  vine  which  shivers  and  yet  strives  to  fulfil  the 
law  of  its  being,  Washington,  the  nation's  only  plant, 
had  ceased  to  be  an  object  of  enthusiasm  to  patriot  or 
speculator.  It  had  no  commerce,  its  inhabitants 
showed  little  enterprise,  trade  was  held  in  disdain  by 
the  influential,  and  the  spirit  of  civic  co-operation  was 
wanting.  Nothing  could  be  done  for  it  without  the 
assent  of  Congress ;  and  being  to  most  intents  a  south 
ern  city,  here  might  be  seen  the  slave-block  and  auction- 
room,  while  scattered  huts  in  remote  quarters  gave  the 
place  the  air  of  some  negro  village.  Fine  sloping  fields 
and  ridges,  once  covered  with  clustering  trees  which 
might  have  made  a  splendid  park  but  had  long  since 
been  felled  for  fuel,  were  disfigured  by  streets  and  ave 
nues  only  partially  opened  and  blocks  of  cheap  and  ugly 
brick  houses  standing  aloof  from  one  another.  Penn 
sylvania  Avenue  was  the  chief  thoroughfare,  its  two- 
story  buildings  serving  the  double  purpose  of  dwelling 


196         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

and  shop.  The  Capitol  and  President's  mansion  were 
almost  the  only  structures  really  agreeable  to  the  eye, 
nor  were  these  yet  finished ;  but  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  latter  were  a  few  pretentious  residences.  A  rural 
neighborhood  changing  into  a  civic  is  rarely  attractive, 
nature  upturning  that  art  may  begin;  but  stagnation 
just  at  that  transition  point  makes  the  loveliest  land 
scape  an  eyesore.  And  so  it  was  here.  Cattle  grazed 
along  the  public  reservations;  goats  from  some  lofty 
height  scanned  the  square,  carefully  plotted,  whose 
owners  would  gladly  have  sold  by  the  acre  for  the  price 
they  had  paid  by  the  foot;  snakes  two  feet  long  wrig 
gled  into  a  cabinet  officer's  mansion,  and  were  killed  at 
the  foot  of  the  staircase.  On  the  broad  Potomac,  sel 
dom  furrowed  by  a  keel,  statesmen  swam  for  daily  ex 
ercise  unmolested.  By  old  Maryland  records  it  was 
shown — strange  coincidence ! — that  part  of  the  land  on 
which  stood  this  ambitious  city  was  once  called  Rome, 
and  its  creek  Tiber ;  and  hence  Moore's  sarcastic  line, — 

"And  what  was  "Goose  Creek  once  is  Tiber  now." 

Marrying  Marcia  Burns,  the  heiress  of  Washington, 
with  whose  stubborn  father  our  first  President  drove  a 
negotiation  almost  as  difficult  as  any  Indian  treaty,  Van 
Ness,  once  a  member  of  Congress,  had  identified  him 
self  with  the  place;  and  improving  a  square  near  the 
juncture  of  the  Tiber  and  Potomac  and  our  new  Wash 
ington  obelisk,  he  built  a  spacious  mansion  in  the  centre 
of  the  square,  not  far  from  the  President's  house.  A 
fine  suburban  house  and  grounds,  lying  just  northwest 
of  the  city,  the  home  originally  of  the  Homeric  Barlow, 
was  known  as  "Kalorama."  But  Barlow  himself  had 
not  stayed  there  long,  nor  could  Washington  greatly  at 
tract  literary  and  studious  men  as  yet.  In  1798  every 


WASHINGTON  IN  1821  197 

government  which  would  build  a  house  for  its  resident 
minister  might  have  a  free  lot;  but  only  Portugal  ac 
cepted  the  offer,  and  the  lot  assigned  was  not  yet  built 
upon.  So  expansive  were  the  distances  that  it  might 
still  be  said  that  neighbors  had  to  go  through  the  woods 
to  make  their  visits.  Roads  were  unpaved,  badly  kept, 
often  impassable  in  winter  and  spring;  and  opposite 
the  Treasury  building  might  be  seen  a  famous  slough, 
into  which  a  carriage-load  of  statesmen  had  been  emp 
tied  not  long  since.  In  very  hot  weather  came  myriads 
of  flies  and  vermin ;  but  by  that  time  Congress  had  usu 
ally  risen,  and  few  were  left  except  clerks  in  the  govern 
ment  employ,  mechanics,  tradespeople,  and  some  very 
diligent  officials  of  high  grade  who  bore  umbrellas. 
Taverns  and  saloons  were  grog-shops,  about  equally 
disreputable,  though  Gadsby's,  near  the  Capitol,  became 
a  hotel  of  some  pretence;  and  as  few  Congressmen  or 
visitors  could  own  or  rent  a  dwelling,  boarding-houses 
were  much  in  demand;  and  after  this  fashion  public 
men  would  lodge  like  a  family,  leaving  their  wives  at 
home,  and  making  a  "mess,"  as  it  was  called.  Each 
boarding-house  had  its  mess,  to  which  no  stranger  was 
admitted  without  the  common  consent  and  an  introduc 
tion. 

In  such  a  metropolis,  where  appetites  abounded,  with 
slim  means  for  gratifying  them,  the  haunts  of  vice  found 
very  little  gilding.  Wretched  drinking  shops,  brothels, 
and  gambling-houses  abounded ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the 
polluted  dregs  of  other  cities  were  emptied  here  every 
winter.  But  theatrical  shows  and  concerts  derived 
little  patronage  from  pleasure-seekers  amid  the  round 
of  social  entertainments  at  the  height  of  a  winter  sea 
son.  In  1820,  when  the  city  charter  was  carefully 
amended,  much  commotion  arose  over  the  municipal 


198         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

offices,  and  the  most  eminent  residents  of  the  place  con 
tended  for  the  honor  of  serving  as  "lord  mayor;"  but 
except  for  acts  which  enabled  the  corporation  to  drain 
the  low  grounds  and  keep  streets  and  alleys  in  better 
order,  Congress  manifested  very  little  interest.  The 
District  militia,  a  well-trained  body,  had  been  of  posi 
tive  service  during  the  war.  Clumsy  provision  was 
made  for  administering  local  justice;  but  up  to  1830, 
so  little  revision  had  been  made  of  the  old  Maryland  or 
Virginia  laws  in  force  when  cession  was  made  to  the 
United  States,  that  one  who  set  fire  to  a  mansion-house 
or  stole  a  horse  was  liable  to  be  hanged  for  it.  As  for 
that  only  thoroughfare  in  Washington  city  worthy  of 
the  name,  the  poplar-lined  avenue  lying  between  the 
Capitol  and  the  White  House,  a  House  Committee  was 
debating  as  late  as  1832  whether  to  permit  a  pavement 
of  round  or  pounded  stones  to  be  laid.  By  February, 
1830,  the  United  States  had  here  expended  upon  na 
tional  buildings  about  $3,229,000,  and  upon  all  other 
objects  within  the  District,  including  streets,  avenues, 
squares,  a  court-house,  jails,  a  penitentiary,  and  a  pub 
lic  burying-ground,  less  than  $187,000.  Forced  to  the 
mean  necessity  of  applying  for  everything  to  a  busy 
legislature  of  non-residents,  wherein  the  local  tax-pay 
ers  found  no  representation  at  all,  the  District  became 
literally  a  beggar,  and  begging  in  vain  so  often,  it  sub 
sided  from  an  eager  into  a  shiftless  one.  The  capital 
city  was  the  nation's  only  child;  surely  the  parent  was 
at  fault  for  rearing  an  offspring  in  the  pride  and  pov 
erty  of  great  expectations. 

Here  gathered  each  winter  season  a  medley  of  dis 
tinguished  characters,  beautiful  women,  travellers,  and 
social  celebrities  from  all  parts  of  the  Union.  After  all, 
there  was  something  cosmopolitan  in  such  a  society, 


CENSUS  OF  1820  199 

softening  the  provincial  lines,  and  in  the  universal  wish 
to  be  pleasant  and  pleased,  encouraging  a  free-handed 
and  even  hearty  hospitality.  The  influence  of  the 
southern  aristocracy  at  this  time  dominated,  but  always 
affably  and  generously  unless  southern  institutions  hap 
pened  to  be  discussed.  Fond  of  treating  and  apt  to  be 
profuse,  these  hosts  easily  seemed  richer  than  they  were. 
It  was  the  exact  and  thrifty,  those  who  knew  how  each 
dollar  was  won  and  spent,  that  least  suited  the  habits  of 
the  place.  In  order  to  bear  high  office  at  Washington 
and  please  this  gay  winter  society,  one  had  to  be  genial 
with  everybody,  and  as  for  cost,  calculate  nothing.  The 
arrival  of  Congress  was  a  signal  for  commencing  the 
round  of  entertainment,  which  lasted  through  the  ses 
sion,  but  chiefly,  as  is  still  the  custom,  between  New 
Year's  Day  and  Ash- Wednesday. 


The  census  of  1820  showed  an  aggregate  population 
in  the  United  States  which  consisted  in  round  numbers 
of  9,634,000,  against  7,240,000  in  1810;  the  whites 
numbering  7,862,000,  the  slaves  1,538,000,  and  the  free 
persons  of  color  234,000.  War,  with  its  usual  decima 
tion  by  disease  and  death,  and  the  check  it  places  upon 
matrimony,  not  to  add  the  failure  of  immigration  for 
some  three  years  in  consequence,  had  brought  the  rela 
tive  increase  on  the  whole  somewhat  below  the  former 
average,  though  returning  peace  now  repaired  all 
breaches  very  rapidly.  Since  1810  six  new  States  had 
been  added  to  the  Union,  a  feat  of  national  fecundity 
without  a  parallel  in  our  history.  This  changed  in  no 
slight  degree  the  adjustment  of  political  forces,  into 
which  a  thousand  delicate  elements  might  enter.  Al 
ready  was  the  sceptre  of  national  leadership  passing  into 


200         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

new  hands.  Virginia,  with  all  her  slaves  to  swell  a 
master's  dignity,  was  at  length  outnumbered  in  popula 
tion  by  the  freemen  of  New  York,  a  State  whose  en 
signs  advanced  as  first  in  rank  and  emulous  of  empire, 
in  the  material  if  not  the  sentimental  sense  of  the  word. 
Behind  pushed  Pennsylvania  with  sturdy  step,  crowd 
ing  close  upon  her  late  preceptor,  and  soon,  too,  to  pass 
her  by.  Ohio,  hoydenish  in  politics,  hastened  to  be 
next  in  numerical  order,  ranking  the  third  already,  or 
next  to  Pennsylvania  for  representative  power.  Only 
by  the  count  of  soul  by  soul,  regardless  of  color  and  so 
cial  condition, — a  count  wholly  fallacious  for  the  ad 
justment  of  political  rank  and  influence  under  our  con 
stitution  as  then  applied, — could  Virginia,  once  first, 
claim  still  to  be  the  second  State  of  the  Union;  and 
even  under  so  favorable  a  comparison  it  was  clearly 
written  that  she  would  soon  sink  to  the  fourth  and  lower 
still,  as  one  enterprising  free  State  after  another  out 
stripped  her  in  the  race  and  passed  on. 

New  York's  rapid  advance  in  wealth  and  numbers 
was  easily  accounted  for.  The  constantly  increasing 
trade  of  her  great  seaport,  already,  perhaps,  the  second 
emporium  of  foreign  commerce  in  the  world,  was  en 
hanced  immensely  by  the  timely  adoption  of  a  wise, 
liberal,  and  for  the  times  immense  system  of  internal 
improvement,  all  without  the  aid  of  the  national  purse, 
by  means  of  which  the  whole  back  country  of  a  State, 
remarkably  favored  by  nature  for  the  united  and  ex 
clusive  development  of  its  commercial  resources,  was 
rapidly  peopled,  and  a  means  of  traffic,  cheap  and  expe 
ditious  beyond  all  precedent,  laid  open  for  the  products 
of  the  rising  west.  What  sons  admirably  qualified  for 
public  station  had  done  so  much  for  their  own  State, 
and  so  little  for  the  Union,  as  the  Clintons  and  the 


CALHOUN  A  LEADER  201 

Livingstons  of  New  York  ?  Aided  by  Chancellor  Liv 
ingston,  Fulton  had  given  to  the  Hudson  and  the  mod 
ern  world  the  first  steamboat  and  the  first  surprising 
instance  of  quick  locomotion.  And  now  to  the  busy 
Hudson  a  Clinton  was  uniting  by  an  artificial  water 
course  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie;  thus  making  of  the 
whole  State,  as  it  were,  a  vast  channel  through  which 
products  should  pour  into  the  lap  of  New  York  City  for 
distribution,  enriching  its  trade  beyond  measure;  be 
sides  giving  to  a  hundred  towns  and  villages  on  the  way 
a  generous  livelihood. 


Calhoun  was  yet  a  young  man,  only  forty  years  of 
age,  and  though  bony  and  slender,  far  different  in  per 
sonal  aspect  from  that  rigid,  scornful,  and  bloodless 
being,  who  in  later  life  held  his  State  and  section  spell 
bound  by  a  mysterious  but  malignant  influence.  He 
was  one  of  those  dreamy-looking  men  whose  presence 
haunts  the  imagination  like  a  verse  of  poetry.  With  a 
face  both  thoughtful  and  handsome,  flashing  brown 
eyes  full  of  penetration,  dark  hair  waving  carelessly 
over  his  high,  broad  forehead,  an  intellect  which  stimu 
lated,  and  most  engaging  manners,  he  was  fascinating 
to  the  last  degree,  and  after  a  method  quite  his  own. 
His  views  were  original  and  confidently  expressed. 
Timidity  and  doubt  seemed  no  part  of  his  nature.  Ad 
ams  and  Jackson,  both  much  older  men  and  in  some  re 
spects  as  unlike  each  other  as  the  poles,  felt  the  charm 
of  his  intercourse;  yet,  not  without  profound  distrust 
of  his  sincerity  upon  a  closer  acquaintance.  Monroe, 
however,  loved  him,  and  one  may  believe  him  to  have 
been  of  a  lovable  and  responsive  nature  until  corroded 
and  consumed  by  ambition.  Younger  men  than  him- 


202         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

self,  those  especially  who  were  likely  to  rise  to  in 
fluence,  he  held  by  delicate  flattery  and  instilled  into 
their  minds  his  political  precepts.  But  his  philosophy 
exacted  from  the  pupil  a  state  of  mind  open  somewhat 
to  magic  and  delusion;  for  he  himself  led  by  a  chain 
of  logic  whose  end  and  beginning  he  had  neither  the 
patience  nor  the  love  of  truth,  for  truth's  own  sake,  to 
search  out.  His  intellect,  which  was  intense  and  in 
genious,  delighted  in  novelties,  bold  contrasts,  and 
startling  conclusions;  but  like  one  who  carries  a  torch 
through  a  cavern,  he  took  his  way  heedless  of  dimen 
sions  or  structure.  He  had  been  trained  in  youth  too 
quickly,  and  was  launched  into  public  life  before  mas 
tering  a  profession.  The  drudgery  of  investigation  he 
disliked;  but  trusted  to  intuition,  the  lightning-glance. 
Hence  in  Calhoun  as  a  statesman  great  talents  and 
great  faults  grew  up  together.  He  has  been  considered 
pure,  upright,  faithful  to  his  convictions.  He  was, 
most  unquestionably,  a  bold  and  independent  thinker; 
and  as  for  morals,  had  been  brought  up  under  strict 
Presbyterian  influences,  to  which  were  superadded 
those  of  Yale  College,  where  he  took  his  degree.  But 
his  convictions  were  formed  upon  such  quicksands,  he 
was  so  little  disposed  to  search  things  to  the  bottom, 
that  ambition  soon  became  an  infatuation,  burning  out 
Calhoun' s  better  part,  though  by  a  slow  process.  When 
the  fever  went  down  it  left  his  nature  passionless,  de 
structive,  deadly,  mischievous.  Now  that  it  began, 
something  noble  and  national  could  be  discovered  in  his 
ambition ;  yet  he  showed  himself  lax,  wayward,  inclined 
to  get  upon  the  winning  side,  and  above  all  to  win  for 
himself.  Adams,  who  never  in  the  world  did  Calhoun 
an  injury,  found  him,  with  the  professions  of  friend 
ship  yet  moist  upon  his  lips,  just  as  ready,  while  thus 


THE  HOLY  ALLIANCE  203 

fired,  to  assail  him  before  the  public  as  ever  he  had  done 
Crawford. 


The  secret  despatches  received  from  our  minister  at 
London  excited  in  the  official  circle  of  Washington  a 
profound  interest.  Rush's  conduct  was  at  the  same 
time  highly  approved.  "You  could  not  have  met  Can 
ning's  proposals  better,"  the  President  wrote  him,  "if 
you  had  had  the  whole  American  cabinet  at  your  right 
hand."  First  of  all,  Monroe  by  letter  consulted  l823 
Jefferson  and  Madison  in  confidence  upon  the  Octofeer- 
momentous  question  thus  presented.  Jefferson  with 
quick  enthusiasm  approved  the  idea  of  a  joint  co-opera 
tion  with  Great  Britain  against  the  plans  of  the  Al 
liance  in  this  western  hemisphere ;  sketching  boldly  the 
outlines  of  an  American  system,  not  Great  Britain's  but 
ours,  of  "keeping  out  of  our  land  all  foreign  powers,  of 
never  permitting  those  of  Europe  to  intermeddle  with 
the  affairs  of  our  nations;"  and  arguing  that  to  draw 
over  to  our  side  at  this  crisis  the  most  powerful  member 
of  Europe  would  be  to  maintain  our  principle,  not  to 
depart  from  it,  to  prevent  instead  of  provoking  war. 
Madison's  mind  yielded  assent  less  easily  to  the  pro 
posals  of  a  minister  whose  roughness  he  well  remem 
bered;  and  concurring  with  Jefferson  in  the  main, 
though  cautiously,  he  vexed  his  mind  again  and  again 
to  discover  some  astute  motive  behind  Canning's 
smooth  approaches. 

Fortified  by  these  opinions,  Monroe  prepared  the 
most  remarkable  document  of  his  official  career ;  an  an 
nual  message  with  paragraphs  which  he  well  knew 
would  be  read  and  pondered  over  by  every  cabinet  and 
legislative  body  in  Europe  and  the  western  world,  as 


204         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

well  as  by  the  Congress  to  whom  his  message  was  ad 
dressed.  The  draft  he  showed  to  his  advisers,  but  con 
ferred  with  them  calmly,  as  one  who  had  made  up  his 
own  mind.  Wirt  was  timorous,  Calhoun  open  to  con 
viction,  Adams  bold  as  a  lion.  The  news  that  Cadiz 
had  surrendered  produced  upon  Calhoun,  at  least,  a  mo 
mentary  panic.  But  the  President,  whose  experience  in 
European  diplomacy  we  should  remember  was  greater 
than  that  of  all  his  cabinet,  felt  confident  of  his  ground. 
He  had  determined  neither  on  the  one  hand  to  provoke 
the  Alliance  by  a  tone  of  taunting  defiance,  nor  on  the 
other  give  this  country  the  appearance  of  taking  a  posi 
tion  subordinate  to  Great  Britain.  As  to  British  pro 
posals,  indeed,  it  was  conceded  that  Rush's  ground  was 
the  true  one.  We  were  stronger,  knowing  that  Great 
Britain  opposed  the  Alliance  as  we  did ;  but  unless  Can 
ning  would  pledge  his  government  to  recognize  South 
American  independence  no  immediate  co-operation  ap 
peared  possible. 

The  President's  message  of  December,  1823,  toned 
down  from  the  solemn  exordium  of  the  draft,  which 
Adams  feared  would  alarm  our  people  like  a  clap  of 
thunder,  and  seem  like  a  summons  to  arms,  put  for 
ward,  therefore,  two  distinct  declarations.  One  bore 
directly  against  the  plans  of  hostile  intervention  cher 
ished  by  the  Holy  Alliance  in  the  flush  of  victory :  "that 
we  should  consider  any  attempt  on  their  part  to  extend 
their  system  to  any  portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dan 
gerous  to  our  peace  and  safety."  The  other,  as  a  more 
general  proposition,  involving  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  United  States :  "that  the  American  continents, 
by  the  free  and  independent  condition  which  they  have 
assumed  and  maintain,  are  henceforth  not  to  be  consid 
ered  as  subjects  for  future  colonization  by  any  Euro- 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE          205 

pean  powers."  In  these  two  propositions  consist  the 
celebrated  "Monroe  doctrine;"  a  doctrine,  we  may  add, 
which  our  later  statesmen  have  developed  at  conven 
ience,  linking  it  inseparably  with  the  name  of  the  Presi 
dent  who  thus  pronounced  it,  and  seeing  in  it  what 
many  hundred  millions  of  American  freemen,  in  the 
long  vista  of  coming  centuries,  will  still  better  recog 
nize,  if  free  institutions  are  capable  of  growth  and  en 
durance,  the  sacred  stone  of  chartered  liberty  in  this 
western  world. 

This  doctrine,  so  profound  of  import,  was  not,  we 
apprehend,  the  sudden  creation  of  individual  thought, 
but  the  result  rather  of  slow  processes  in  our  public 
mind,  which  had  been  constantly  intent  upon  problems 
of  self-government,  and  intensely  observant  of  our  con 
tinental  surroundings;  though  carried  forward,  no 
doubt,  like  other  ideas  in  the  colonial  epoch,  by  the  en 
ergy  and  clearer  conviction  of  statesmen  who  could 
foresee  and  link  conceptions  into  a  logical  chain.  Neu 
trality  as  to  European  affairs,  freedom  from  all  en 
tangling  alliances  with  the  Old  World,  was  the  legacy 
of  experience  which  Washington  bequeathed  to  his  suc 
cessors.  This  might  have  seemed  at  first  to  discourage 
all  external  influence,  and  remit  our  Union  to  the  selfish 
and  isolated  pursuit  of  its  own  interests.  But  the  an 
nexation  of  Louisiana  proved  that  the  Union  itself  was 
destined  to  expand  over  an  uncertain  area  of  this  con 
tinent.  And  when,  inspired  by  our  example,  the  Span 
ish  colonies  of  the  American  continent  were  seen  one 
after  another  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  the  parent  coun 
try,  and  spontaneously  assert  their  independence,  the 
philanthropic  leaders — and  none  among  them  so  quick 
ly  or  so  persistently  as  Jefferson — began  to  predict  the 
fraternal  co-operation  in  the  future  of  these  free  repub- 


206         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

lies,  all  modelled  alike,  in  a  common  scheme  for  self- 
preservation  which  should  shut  out  Europe,  its  rulers 
and  its  systems  of  monarchy,  forever  from  this  hemis 
phere.  For  by  such  means  only  could  the  germ  of  self- 
government  expand,  and  the  luxuriant  growth  of  this 
hardy  plant  make  it  impossible  that  the  monarchical 
idea  should  ever  strike  a  deep  root  in  American  soil. 
By  1823,  then,  the  new  maxim  as  a  fundamental  one 
was  by  no  means  unfamiliar  to  our  political  leaders. 
Sympathy  for  sister-republics,  as  well  as  self-interest, 
imposed  upon  the  United  States  the  announcement  of 
that  maxim.  When  liberty  struggled  in  America  we 
were  not — we  could  not  be — neutral.  The  time  of  an 
nouncement  and  the  choice  of  expression,  nevertheless, 
awaited  events.  Pending  that  announcement,  Clay, 
the  ardent  champion  of  the  Spanish  American  cause, 
made  speeches  in  his  own  State,  which  brought  out  the 
principle  in  terms  not  less  striking  than  any  which 
Adams  has  preserved  in  his  Diary.  The  time  for  the 
announcement  was  when,  following  close  upon  our  ac 
ceptance  of  these  American  republics  as  independent 
States,  the  Holy  Alliance  threatened  to  overturn  them. 
Did  a  President  in  the  bosom  confidence  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison,  who  had  conducted  the  portfolio  of  State 
for  years  before  his  latest  promotion,  need  to  take  his 
ideas  from  any  subordinate?  Allowing,  therefore,  to 
Adams  his  full  praise  as  an  adviser  in  this  emergency, 
and  giving  to  the  choice  of  words  for  defining  a  well- 
understood  policy  whatever  merit  it  may  deserve,  we 
may  remark  that  the  calm,  dull  phraseology  of  this 
message  is  sufficiently  in  the  Presidential  vein  to  de 
serve  the  epithet  original  in  the  most  liberal  sense  usu 
ally  applied  to  State  papers.  It  was  the  courage  of  a 
great  people  personified  in  a  firm  chief  magistrate  that 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE          207 

put  the  fire  into  those  few  momentous  though  moderate 
sentences,  and  made  them  glow  like  the  writing  at  Bel- 
shazzar's  feast. 

Monroe  meant  neither  that  the  United  States  should 
monopolize  the  New  World,  nor  that  we  should  fight 
single-handed  the  battles  of  sister-republics;  a  policy 
of  consummate  statesmanship  could  not  in  such  hands 
have  been  perverted  into  one  of  consummate  statecraft. 
The  danger  was  near  our  door  and  he  repelled  it. 
Threat  was  opposed  by  threat,  and  a  course  of  policy 
laid  open  whose  direction  the  future  would  determine. 
It  is  not,  then,  the  genius  of  creating  which  belongs  to 
Monroe,  but,  as  with  most  great  administrators,  the 
genius  of  apprehending,  of  taking  the  immediate  re 
sponsibility  ;  and  rarely,  if  ever,  has  responsibility  been 
assumed,  under  the  constitutional  system  of  these  Unit 
ed  States,  by  any  Executive  so  utterly  apart  from  the 
sanction  of  the  legislature.  A  Presidential  dictum  has 
passed  into  the  fundamental  law  of  American  diplo 
macy.  And  this  crowning  effort  of  Monroe's  career 
contrasted  well  with  that  to  which  it  stood  opposed ;  for 
the  main  motive  was  to  shelter  honorably  these  tender 
blossoms  of  liberty  on  kindred  soil  from  the  cold  Sibe 
rian  blast  of  despotism. 


With  tariff  debates  and  the  tariff  act  of  1824  the 
vista  of  new  national  parties  opens.  Not  yet  did  Clay 
and  Webster  come  into  that  alliance,  which  in  com 
bining  the  sympathetic  with  the  intellectual  school  of 
oratory,  the  power  of  exhortation  with  that  of  match 
less  argument,  was  the  most  remarkable  ever  made  in 
any  deliberative  body  of  this  western  world.  Clay 
could  introduce  and  manage  a  bill  or  resolution,  while 


208         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Webster  made  the  best  speech  in  favor  of  adopting  it. 
Both  inclined  to  a  strong  central  government  and  the 
broad  construction  of  national  powers,  though  brought 
up  in  opposite  political  schools, — Clay  as  a  Republican, 
Webster  as  a  Federalist.  In  influence  and  methods 
they  were  the  complement  of  each  other.  Clay  was 
ardent,  sympathetic,  a  man  to  be  loved  and  fought  for, 
in  spite  of  all  blemishes.  If  he  missed  fire  once,  he 
was  to  be  tried  again;  he  made  the  warmest  friends 
and  the  bitterest  enemies.  Webster,  on  the  other  hand, 
seldom  made  enemies,  standing,  as  he  did,  on  a  higher 
and  more  solitary  plane,  less  approachable  by  friend  or 
foe.  The  quality  of  his  greatness  was  supremely  in 
tellectual  ;  men  thought  him  infallible,  almost  superhu 
man  ;  worship  was  the  frenzy  he  excited  in  the  popular 
breast,  and  thousands  who  literally  idolized  him  be 
lieved  him  free  from  the  common  temptations  of 
public  life  and  the  self-absorption  of  its  ambitions.  In 
these  purer  years  of  his  career  his  soar  was  like  the 
eagle's  and  his  rising  sun  a  glorious  birth.  No  one 
who  has  seen  and  heard  Daniel  Webster  in  his  prime 
can  liken  his  oratory  or  his  personal  presence  to  that 
of  any  other  mortal  man.  Chaste,  simple,  compact,  but 
strong,  moving  in  one  grand  and  steady  current,  on 
ward,  right  onward,  his  speech  gathered  volume  as  he 
warmed  with  the  theme,  until  a  magnificent  torrent  bore 
down  all  before  it.  The  stream  that  widens  to  a  river 
or  the  regiment  that  swells  to  a  host — such  metaphors 
only  can  describe  his  progress  to  a  climax.  No  man 
so  rose  to  the  grandeur  of  an  occasion.  But  however 
impassioned  the  effect  produced,  the  orator  was  himself 
cool,  self-controlled,  and  always  deliberate;  for  he 
seemed  somehow  to  possess  Prospero's  magic  art,  so  as 
to  create  a  tempest  by  a  wave  of  the  wand,  confident 


WEBSTER'S  ORATORY  209 

that  he  could  calm  it  when  he  was  ready.  His  power 
of  statement  was  remarkable.  Force  and  utterance  he 
relied  upon  as  qualities  to  produce  conviction,  but  clear 
ness  equally.  His  strong  and  rugged  sentences,  Anglo- 
Saxon  in  the  phrasing  and  choice  of  words,  relieved 
the  burden  of  argument  in  the  loftier  passages  by  bold 
imagery  draped  in  the  language  of  the  master  poets, — 
Milton  above  all, — of  whom  Webster  showed  himself 
a  close  student,  without  the  slightest  appearance  of  ped 
antry  ;  not  only  quoting,  as  he  might,  a  couplet,  so  as  to 
be  brief,  but  so  transfusing  the  substance  of  immortal 
verse  into  the  diction  of  his  own  speech  that  a  prose  ut 
terance  rang  out  with  the  music  of  a  sublime  harmony. 
Of  statesmen  no  one  but  Burke  has  left  speeches  so 
worthy  of  rank  among  the  English  prose  classics;  and 
while  Burke,  as  tradition  tells  us,  rose  too  often  above 
those  he  addressed  and  got  tedious,  Webster  spoke  to 
the  time  and  occasion,  and  carried  his  audience  to  the 
close.  The  views  which  Webster  announced  were  of 
the  broad  and  elevating  kind,  and  instead  of  picking 
an  adversary's  speech  to  pieces  he  preferred  to  set  forth 
the  main  facts  and  principles  as  he  viewed  them,  and 
rest  his  argument  upon  vital  and  essential  points,  which 
the  luminous  process  of  his  mind  enabled  him  to  dis 
cover  and  set  apart.  If  there  was  art  in  all  this,  he 
was  discreet  enough  to  conceal  it,  and  no  one  opposed 
to  him  could  complain  that  he  was  utterly  uncandid, 
still  less  uncivil.  To  crown  all,  Wrebster's  overpower 
ing  presence  and  manner,  as  every  American  knows, 
gave  weight  to  the  commonest  remark  which  might  es 
cape  his  lips,  and  deepened  immeasurably  the  effect  of 
an  eloquence  which  surely  needed  the  aid  of  no  mere 
tricious  trick  or  illusion.  To  this  grave,  swarthy,  mas 
sive,  and  majestic  lion  of  a  man,  who  moved  among  a 


210         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

thousand  with  an  easy  consciousness  of  superiority, 
mental  and  physical,  and  who,  in  the  plenitude  of  his 
powers,  could  not  stop  before  a  shop-window  without 
drawing  a  crowd  to  gaze,  awe-stricken,  upon  him,  the 
epithets  "Olympian,"  "god-like,"  were  freely  applied, 
and  with  the  most  obvious  aptitude.  Had  he  stood  in 
the  market  square,  raised  an  arm,  and  frozen  into 
silence,  his  erect  figure  would  have  been  accepted  as  the 
bronze  ideal  of  statesman  and  defender  of  the  constitu 
tion.  Clay's  agile  craft  seemed  light  in  comparison 
when  this  great  American  man-of-war  bore  down,  full 
rigged,  before  the  wind,  with  spreading  sail  and  pon 
derous  tonnage,  crowding  all  canvas,  and  flying  the 
stars  and  stripes  fearlessly  at  the  fore.  Those  stars 
and  stripes  were  very  dear  to  Webster,  for  love  of  the 
Union  gave  the  best  inspiration  to  his  public  career.  He 
was  in  every  fibre  an  American  patriot;  and  entering 
public  life  in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  on  that 
broad  altar,  to  use  his  own  expression,  did  he  dedicate 
himself.  In  temperament  he  was  conservative,  like  the 
Massachusetts  of  that  day,  and  of  that  juridical  type, 
moreover,  which  would  keep  liberty  closely  protected 
by  law.  His  whole  soul  abhorred  radical  and  violent 
change ;  nevertheless  he  progressed.  That  government 
is  based  upon  property  was,  as  he  asserted,  a  funda 
mental  maxim;  and  to  benefit  property  and  increase 
the  general  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  nation  consti 
tuted  perhaps  the  chief  scope  of  his  long  statesman 
ship. 

Webster  inclined  naturally  to  indolence.  But  his 
aspirations  were  noble,  and  when  aroused  his  native 
energy  carried  him  along  with  great  celerity.  Gifted 
with  a  broad,  analytic  mind  which  acquired  rapidly, 
grasped  principles,  and  sifted  all  details,  he  treasured 


WEBSTER  THE  STATESMAN        211 

all  that  was  worth  remembering ;  and  what  he  knew  he 
could  tell  clearly,  without  risking  himself  to  tell  more 
or  venturing  beyond  his  depth.  Like  other  great  law 
yers,  he  could  not  only  investigate  by  the  best  means 
when  the  point  arose,  but  understood  perfectly  how  to 
absorb  the  labors  of  other  men.  Love  of  nature  and 
rural  sports  enriched  his  personal  experience  of  life, 
which  was  great  and  varied;  and  carrying,  as  he  wan 
dered  on  some  lonely  excursion  through  the  woods,  the 
secret  habit  of  composition,  he  would,  pole  in  hand,  ar 
range  the  order  of  some  new  oration,  or  address  an 
eloquent  passage  to  the  trout  which  he  jerked  out  of 
the  brook.  Some  of  his  greatest  speeches,  which 
seemed  to  spring  from  the  brain  in  full  panoply,  were 
constructed  from  memoranda  composed  in  leisure  mo 
ments  and  then  laid  aside. 

He  was  bred  and  born  a  Puritan  Federalist ;  and  his 
politics  showed  always  the  peculiar  training  of  that 
school,  which,  in  Boston  especially,  had  a  decided  tinge 
of  Anglicism.  To  Gore  and  other  leaders  of  that  party 
who  had  befriended  his  youth  Webster  owned  a  per 
sonal  obligation;  but  he  rose  superior  to  the  ancient 
bigotry,  and  Jefferson,  to  whom  he  paid  a  visit  about 
this  time,  spoke  with  high  praise  of  him.  Webster  had 
come  to  Congress  once  more  thoroughly  independent  in 
politics;  a  middleman,  so  to  speak,  and  in  the  present 
disordered  condition  of  parties  and  principles,  he  easily 
made  himself  felt. 


Peace,  prosperity,  and  the  revival  of  patriotic  feel 
ing  over  Lafayette's  visit  marked  the  close  of  this  re 
markable  administration ;  the  last  in  fact  which  linked 
our  people  with  the  Revolutionary  age.  Monroe's  pol- 


212         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

icy  had  been  a  broad  one.  Within  eight  years  the  gov 
ernment  had  made  great  strides  towards  establishing 
our  interests  and  empire  in  this  continent ;  we  had  add 
ed  the  Floridas,  planted  our  flag  firmly  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  befriended,  first  of  all  nations,  the  cause  of 
Spain's  revolting  colonies.  To  the  disdain  once  shown 
by  European  powers  had  succeeded  respect  for  a  nation 
which  had  vindicated  its  policy  through  peace  and  war. 
Upon  the  enlargement  of  the  map  of  this  Union  beyond 
the  confines  of  the  old  thirteen,  the  name  of  Monroe 
stands  indelibly  inscribed.  Louisiana  spoke,  therefore, 
with  a  gratitude  peculiarly  filial  in  the  resolutions  of 
sympathy  offered  by  its  legislature  upon  his  retirement. 
Other  legislatures,  those,  for  instance,  of  Maine,  Massa 
chusetts,  New  Hampshire,  New  York,  Alabama,  Mary 
land  and  South  Carolina,  dwelt  more  generally  upon 
his  impartial  and  dignified  course,  his  essential  services, 
and  long  tried  patriotism.  Tokens  of  approval  reached 
the  retiring  President  from  men  of  all  political  shades. 
The  hoary  John  Adams  congratulated  him  on  the  sin 
gular  felicity  of  an  administration  "which,  as  far  as  I 
know,  has  been  without  fault."  And  Marshall  wrote 
in  similar  strain,  "The  retrospect  is  not  darkened  by  a 
single  spot." 

Thus  peacefully  glided  to  its  eight-years'  close  one  of 
the  most  serene,  dignified,  and  at  the  same  time  success 
ful  administrations  the  world  ever  saw.  For  our 
people  this  respite  from  party  strife  was  a  beautiful, 
though  passing  episode.  Party  men  no  longer,  they 
seemed  to  themselves  national  men,  Americans  in  a 
greater  sense  than  they  had  dreamed  possible.  The 
whole  mechanism  of  society  moved  in  perfect  order. 
The  democracy  ruled,  but  it  was  a  democracy  in  which 
jealousies  found  no  root,  and  the  abler  and  more  vir- 


MONROE  RETIRES  213 

tuous  of  the  community  took  the  lead.  None  needed  to 
despair ;  all  were  cheerful  and  hopeful.  Busy  and  pros 
pering,  each  fell  happily  into  his  own  routine,  and  was 
well  disposed  to  those  above  or  below  him.  To  the 
oppressed  of  other  nations  we  shone  with  a  steady 
flame,  that  our  light  might  be  a  help  and  comfort.  A 
breath  dissolves  this  picture;  and  fiercer  passions  rule 
once  more  the  hearts  of  men.  That  this  ideal  govern 
ment  of  the  people  had  felt  the  touch  of  consecration 
for  the  moment  was  not,  however,  to  be  doubted.  The 
people  were  guided  by  the  silent  influence  of  a  lofty  ex 
ample,  and  walked  safely  in  the  clear  upper  air. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 

§  I.  Period  of  Nineteenth  Congress.  March  4,  i825-March  3, 
1827. — §  II.  Period  of  Twentieth  Congress.  March  4,  1827- 
March  3,  1829. 

THE  era  of  good  feeling  was  precisely  coeval 
with  Monroe's  double  term  of  office.  Its  im 
pulse,  however,  in  the  quickening  of  the  na 
tional  spirit  was  carried  to  a  far  later  date.  Nor 
did  party  virulence  break  out  into  anything  like  an 
angry  and  indecent  expression  before  Lafayette  had  re- 
embarked  for  France  and  a  new  Congress  listened  to 
the  new  President's  first  annual  message.  Party  lines, 
nevertheless,  began  to  be  drawn  for  1828,  and  the 
political  elements  to  re-combine  the  moment  Monroe 
retired;  and  a  new  and  formidable  coalition  of  the 
disappointed  candidates  threatened,  thwarted,  and  then 
overthrew  his  successor.  Hence  the  most  tranquil  of 
administrations  was  followed,  like  a  thunderclap,  by 
one  of  the  stormiest. 

New  national  parties  must  inevitably  have  arisen. 
But  two  causes  at  this  time  hastened  their  formation : 
( i )  The  clear  and  vigorous  policy  which  Adams  chose 
to  personify  in  himself;  (2)  the  peculiar  circumstances 
attending  his  elevation  and  the  choice  of  his  cabinet. 
These  causes,  operating  together  and  continually,  drove 
all  opponents  of  the  new  administration  into  a  natural 


NEW  PARTY  IDEALS  215 

coalition,  forcing  a  division  line ;  popular  elements,  nat 
urally  sluggish,  leaped  into  new  relations,  and  a  furious 
struggle  for  the  mastery  was  the  consequence,  personal 
in  its  inception,  but  not  without  developing  differences 
of  political  principle,  as  well  as  of  taste  or  temper,  as 
it  proceeded. 

As  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  an  unpopular  administra 
tion,  Randolph  was  not  to  be  despised ;  and  on  this  ac 
count,  perhaps,  Calhoun  bore  gently  with  him,  watching 
from  his  chair  the  flow  of  poesy  and  vituperation  which 
the  rules  of  the  Senate,  so  he  alleged,  forbade  him  to 
interrupt. 

Did  Calhoun,  as  he  sat  rigid  and  statue-like  in  the 
Vice-President's  chair,  listening  with  pale  face,  lips 
compressed,  and  scornful  eyes,  his  thick  hair  brushed 
boldly  back  from  his  imperious  forehead,  extract  ideas 
from  this  tangled  monologue  for  his  own  political  guid 
ance?  And  had  he  already  begun  to  reconstruct  his 
theory  of  American  government  so  as  to  place  the  State 
above  the  nation  ?  At  all  events,  it  is  claimed  by  Ran 
dolph's  latest  biographer*  that  Randolph  himself,  even 
while  despised  in  his  own  eyes,  organized  the  south  as 
a  distinct  power,  and  made  Calhoun  his  convert.  With 
like  foresight,  it  may  be  added,  Calhoun  and  Randolph, 
the  later  and  earlier  sophist  of  the  pro-slavery  school, 
took  care  to  attach  to  their  persons  young  men  who 
were  likely  to  rise  to  influence  in  their  several  homes, 
and,  after  a  fascinating  strain  which  pictured  slavehold 
ers  as  chained  to  some  necessity  by  a  fate  which  they 
might  deplore  but  could  not  avert,  set  forth  the  dark 
issue  as  one  of  life  or  death,  wherein  every  sentiment 
of  chivalry  and  humanity  required  two  races  to  be  kept, 
the  one  above  and  the  other  below  the  other.  Each 
*See  Henry  Adams's  John  Randolph. 


216         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

set  the  example  of  kindness  to  slaves,  and  appreciated 
heartily  the  simple  and  childish  tenderness  which  was 
yielded  in  return.  Each  half  inclined  to  emancipate; 
but  each,  with  characteristic  temper,  spurned  the 
thought  that  a  southerner's  best  impulse  should  be  aided 
from  without.  What  existed  must  continue  to  exist, 
so  they  argued,  and  to  preserve  the  existence  of  slavery 
was  their  own  right;  for  never  in  history  had  two  dis 
tinct  races  occupied  the  soil  together,  except  as  master 
and  slave.  State  rights  afforded  thus  a  barricade 
whenever  the  south  should  be  driven  to  cover;  and  to 
consolidate  southern  influence  and  the  slave  power, 
either  for  offensive  or  defensive  warfare,  as  circum 
stances  might  demand,  was  the  work  which  Randolph 
began  and  Calhoun  completed. 


John  Quincy  Adams,  though  now  at  the  age  of  sixty, 
maintained  by  temperate  habits  a  full  vigor  of  mind  and 
body.  His  figure  was  short  and  thick,  but  regular  ex 
ercise  kept  it  from  corpulence.  His  round,  bald  head, 
filled,  as  the  forehead  showed,  with  an  active  and  capa 
cious  brain,  was  set  firmly  upon  square  shoulders,  con 
veying  at  once  the  impression  of  honest  and  fearless 
dogmatism.  His  eyes  were  small,  black,  and  piercing, 
discerning  selfish  motives  at  a  glance,  however  covered 
up  by  cunning  and  hypocrisy,  and  yet  too  ready  to  see 
the  faulty  part  of  men  and  believe  the  worst  of  them, 
unwilling  to  indulge  harmless  flattery  or  be  blinded  by 
good  nature;  while  a  troublesome  rheum  gave  some 
times  a  ludicrous  pathos  to  their  severity  of  expression 
as  though  he  wept.  Under  a  fringe  of  thin  gray  hair 
and  side-whiskers  stood  out  his  firm  cheek-bones,  large 
mouth  and  chin,  the  whole  expression  of  the  face  that 


THE  TWO  ADAMSES  217 


of  self-respect  and  resolution.  To  glance  at  a  good 
portrait  of  this  man  is  to  feel  positive  that  he  had  his 
opinion  and  was  prepared  to  state  it.  In  one  picture 
his  hand  holds  a  book,  with  fingers  at  the  very  page  and 
passage  wanted ;  in  another  his  outstretched  arm  plants 
a  cane,  as  though  to  pin  his  postulate  fast  to  solid 
earth. 

A  family  resemblance  is  traceable  between  the  second 
and  sixth  Presidents,  and  at  the  same  time  striking 
differences,  both  of  character  and  method  of  adminis 
tration.  Both  the  Adamses  had  dignified  aims  and  a 
just  sense  of  public  duty;  both  looked  upon  the  Presi 
dency  as  the  highest  grade  of  public  honor,  to  be 
reached  by  a  long,  laborious,  and  honorable  approach ; 
a  prize  to  be  not  less  deserved  than  desired.  Both  were 
trained  civilians  and  students  of  political  systems,  hav 
ing  illustrious  claims  upon  the  common  gratitude.  But 
with  infinite  preparation,  both  proved  unsuccessful  po 
litical  leaders,  unsuccessful  Presidents,  and  were  cast 
aside  on  the  nearest  opportunity,  chiefly  because  of  a 
peculiar  temper,  such  as  unfits  one  for  managing  or 
being  managed,  but  leaves  him  an  individual  contending 
in  the  midst  of  surrounding  circumstances.  Strangely 
unfortunate  circumstances  were  those  in  which  each  ac 
cepted  the  burden  of  exalted  station ;  but  such  was  the 
strength  of  personal  character  in  either  instance,  that 
the  people  learned  to  honor  those  they  had  thrown 
down.  Of  these  two  sons  of  America,  John  Adams 
was  the  more  humane  and  generous,  and  John  Quincy 
Adams  the  more  scholarly.  The  former  felt  the  limita 
tions  of  a  British-born  colonist,  the  subject  of  a  king, 
though  time  and  experience  moulded  him  into  a  Repub 
lican;  the  latter  was  a  Republican  by  instinct  and  con 
viction.  Adams  the  elder  had  a  noble  heart  and  went 


2i 8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

by  its  impulses.  He  clung  to  his  friends,  cherished 
strong  likes  and  dislikes,  quarrelled  and  made  up,  loved 
his  family,  and,  when  things  went  pleasantly,  gave  his 
light  humor  full  play.  He  was  a  man  of  foibles,  and 
erratic  often,  under  the  influence  of  vanity  or  wounded 
pride.  But  John  Quincy  Adams,  constant  in  domestic 
duties,  and  a  model  husband,  son,  and  father,  found 
scarcely  a  tender  tie  outside  his  home  circle,  and  all  his 
humor  was  sardonic,  like  that  of  a  misanthrope.  Both 
were  irritable  and  impatient,  ill-disposed  to  advice, 
sufficient  unto  themselves;  but  the  elder  was  irascible, 
bursting  out  like  a  thunder-storm  and  then  yielding  to 
sunshine,  while  the  younger,  who  better  controlled  his 
feelings  and  kept  himself  under  rigid  discipline,  did  not 
disclose  infirmity  of  temper  so  much  as  a  cold,  unsym 
pathetic  manner,  which  could  make  a  scornful  utterance 
terribly  bitter,  far  more  so,  indeed,  oftentimes,  than 
he  was  aware  of.  Neither  had  tact  in  statesmanship; 
both  despised  little  arts ;  but  the  father,  who  theorized 
against  democracy,  was  in  his  day  loved  by  the  people 
and  thwarted  by  the  politicians,  while  the  son,  whose 
theories  were  liberal  enough,  could  dispel  a  rivalry 
better  than  the  dense  weight  of  unpopularity  which  for 
ever  enveloped  him.  The  elder  erred  the  more  often 
from  impulse,  the  younger  from  a  want  of  it;  and  yet 
reflection,  or  a  returning  sense  of  justice,  prompted 
John  Quincy  Adams  to  many  a  considerate  and  disin 
terested  act  which  from  the  world  was  hidden.  In 
business  method,  punctiliousness,  the  supervision  of  de 
partment  business,  the  first  Adams  failed ;  while  in  these 
respects  the  second  may  be  held  up  as  a  model  Presi 
dent;  but  hesitation  to  remove,  to  maintain  a  needful 
discipline,  was  their  common  failing  in  the  Executive 
office.  Neither  had  the  faculty  of  organizing ;  but  each 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  219 

as  a  leader  left  political  elements  to  coalesce  as  they 
might.  To  rule  through  subordinates  and  keep  up  a 
loyal,  compact  administration  was  beyond  them;  and 
still  more,  to  keep  the  majority  bearing  up  the  whole 
weight ;  for  each,  with  all  his  study  of  comparative  pol 
itics,  carried  something  of  the  doctrinaire  into  affairs, 
and  though  strong  in  great  points  was  weak  in  the 
small  ones.  Both,  in  fine,  had  burning  convictions,  but 
the  father's  convictions  were  those  of  youth  and  prac 
tical  benevolence ;  the  son's,  on  the  other  hand,  of  serious 
study,  a  morose  disposition,  and  crabbed  old  age ;  these 
guided  to  independence  and  union,  those,  by  making 
the  north  courageous,  to  fratricide  and  civil  war,  and 
yet  through  all,  as  we  may  hope,  to  a  higher  conception 
of  liberty  and  equal  rights.  As  President  the  two 
Adamses  passed  quickly  out  among  the  failures  of  the 
age,  their  best  deeds  not  long  remembered;  but  as 
fearless  men  on  the  floor  of  an  American  Congress, 
stirring  the  blood,  forcing  conviction  by  example,  and 
compelling  willing  or  unwilling  attention,  they  stand 
on  the  canvas  the  most  vivid  figures  of  two  remarkable 
epochs  of  American  history  full  sixty  years  apart.  John 
Adams  stood  among  the  immortals  in  youth  as  John 
Quincy  Adams  did  in  old  age. 

So  far  as  education  and  the  experience  of  foreign 
courts  and  cabinet  can  make  one  a  chief  magistrate,  no 
one  was  ever  better  qualified  for  President  of  the  United 
States  than  John  Quincy  Adams.  His  training  for 
that  office  began  in  precocious  youth,  and  under  the 
watchful  direction  of  parents  whose  pride  as  well  as 
their  love  was  bound  up  in  him.  Nothing  that  the 
fame  and  influence  of  John  Adams  could  accomplish — 
and  in  those  days  traditions  and  family  influence  were 
very  powerful — was  omitted,  that  a  favorite  son  might 


220         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

be  set  on  the  high  road  to  public  preferment.  The  son 
himself  responded  early  and  constantly  to  these  efforts ; 
he  developed  ambition,  talent,  studiousness,  and  an  in 
domitable  perseverance.  His  daily  life  was  regulated 
with  the  utmost  precision ;  not  an  hour  of  the  day  was 
wasted.  He  rose  when  his  chronometer  pointed  a  cer 
tain  hour,  and  dressed  by  the  light  of  his  taper;  in 
regimen  and  exercise  he  calculated  to  a  nicety  what 
would  keep  him  in  physical  tone  for  the  labors  each  day 
imposed  and  carry  him  the  full  span  of  a  great  public 
career;  business,  usually  of  the  diplomatic  kind,  divided 
the  time  with  books,  literary  composition,  and  whatever 
else  might  serve  for  self-culture;  bedtime  approached, 
and  happy  was  he  if  no  social  hilarity  kept  him  up 
beyond  the  regular  hour.  With  so  perfect  a  chart  of 
daily  existence  formed  in  early  life,  and,  like  civil  gov 
ernment  itself,  capable  of  amendment  or  remodelling 
as  experience  and  the  change  of  circumstances  might 
suggest,  but  never  to  be  abandoned,  each  obligation  of 
life  was  punctiliously  regarded ;  and  among  these  obli 
gations,  the  social  one,  which  in  court  circles  consists 
so  largely  in  the  interchange  of  cards,  receptions,  routs, 
balls,  and  the  like  ceremonious  civilities,  found  its  place. 
But  where  so  much  was  laid  out  to  be  done  and  so  little 
left  to  happen,  the  gentler  hospitalities  and  graces  of 
life  were  the  most  likely  to  suffer.  Adams  weeded  the 
garden  of  his  morals  with  the  utmost  care;  his  intro 
spection  was  constant;  he  took  physical  exercise  but 
little  recreation ;  he  allowed  himself  no  vices,  no  indul 
gences.  He  never  gave  way  to  the  dissipations  of 
youth,  for  he  had  no  youth.  As  part  of  his  machinery 
of  self-improvement  he  opened  a  Diary  in  1794, — in 
deed,  his  earlier  efforts  in  this  direction  began  when  he 
was  only  twelve  years  old, — and  kept  it  almost  continu- 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  221 

ously  until  within  a  few  years  of  his  death.  Out  of 
all  this  self-discipline  and  public  experience,  beginning 
in  early  youth,  which  was  confined  chiefly  to  the  artifi 
cial  surroundings  of  European  courts  or  of  our  pseudo- 
court  at  Washington,  developed  a  character  whose 
unyielding  Puritanism,  always  the  strongest  element  in 
spite  of  all  that  mingling  with  the  world  could  do,  gave 
it  a  sombre  and  unsocial  cast.  He  grew  up  to  be  a  lover 
of  books  and  political  philosophy  more  than  a  lover  of 
his  kind.  Self-love,  self-absorption,  was  his  great  de 
fect  of  character;  although  he  meant  to  be  just  by  all 
men,  and  as  a  statesman  the  good  of  the  public  was, 
doubtless,  the  grand  purpose  of  his  career.  By  the 
time  he  became  President  he  had  grown  close  in  money 
matters,  close  in  family  affection,  and  a  constant  nig 
gard  of  his  hours, — nothing  annoyed  him  more  than 
to  be  obliged  to  waste  so  much  precious  time  in  listening 
to  foolish  and  frivolous  people.  Then,  too,  he  was  stiff 
and  unsusceptible.  He  enjoyed  the  seclusion  of  his 
home  and  study,  where  he  might  prepare  by  himself  the 
immortal  task ;  and  in  that  task  he  cared  to  consult  only 
Him  who  prescribed  it. 

Adams  had  in  his  day  met  more  great  men  than  per 
haps  any  other  American  of  his  age;  yet  among  men 
great  or  small  he  had  hardly  an  intimate  friend ;  from 
boyhood  he  had  mingled  constantly  in  society,  enter 
taining  and  being  entertained,  yet  he  could  not  make  a 
guest  feel  at  ease  in  his  company.  Light  compliments 
he  rarely  exchanged.  If  he  thought  a  jest,  it  left  his 
mouth  a  sarcasm.  He  was  earnest,  but  had  no  gen 
erous  sense  of  humor.  When  a  common  voter  came 
up  with  his  plain  but  hearty  salute,  Adams  turned  him 
off  with  an  ill-suited  response,  uttered  in  so  harsh  and 
jarring  a  tone  that  it  sounded  like  a  malediction.  His 


222         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

iciness  of  manner  repelled  even  where  he  invited  ap 
proaches.  Circumspect,  cautious,  distrustful,  his  habit 
was  to  receive  but  not  communicate.  In  short,  his  way 
to  distinction  was  won  not  by  courting  popularity  but 
by  compelling  respect ;  and  at  every  step  he  took  a  foe 
would  start  up.  He  judged  of  contemporaries  harshly, 
as  his  Diary  shows ;  looked  at  the  seamy  side  of  human 
nature;  and  suffering  great  hindrance  from  his  want 
of  tact,  he  judged  bitterly  enough  of  those  who  thrived 
by  means  of  it. 

But,  popular  or  unpopular,  who  could  better  have 
been  leaned  upon  at  this  hour  than  one  so  eminent  in 
the  qualities  of  a  statesman  ?  For  to  great  talents,  in 
formation,  and  experience  in  affairs,  Adams  united  un 
ceasing  industry  and  perseverance,  besides  facility  of 
execution  and  a  wholesome  temperate  life.  He  had  a 
high  standard  of  public  and  private  virtue,  and  was 
conscientious  in  his  dealings.  Nevertheless,  Adams 
had  faults  as  an  Executive  fatal  to  a  successful  admin 
istration.  We  speak  not  of  his  infirmity  of  temper ;  for 
on  the  occasions  which  had  most  tried  his  patience  he 
well  sustained  the  dignity  of  his  station,  and  drew  up 
a  message  so  mild  upon  French  spoliations  that  Clay 
protested  that  one  might  as  well  have  announced  those 
claims  as  abandoned.  Nothing  but  the  outrageous  as 
saults  of  Congress  in  the  latter  part  of  his  term  drove 
him  from  the  good  resolution  to  curb  tongue  and  pen 
with  which  he  guardedly  set  out.  But  Adams,  though 
a  statesman,  was  no  politician ;  and  no  one  can  read  the 
lesson  of  his  failure  and  hold  arts  of  management  longer 
in  contempt.  He  was  in  the  most  genuine  sense  the 
scholar  in  politics.  So  far  from  organizing  the  sup 
port  which  was  far  from  sufficient  when  he  entered 
upon  his  office,  he  let  what  he  had  fritter  away  through 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  223 

inattention  or  an  unwillingness  to  make  the  effort  to  at 
tach  it.  As  to  a  policy,  instead  of  considering  how  much 
the  times  would  bear,  proposing  simply  what  might  be 
carried,  and  avoiding  needless  hostilities,  he  blocked  out 
grand  but  impracticable  projects,  as  though  his  mission 
lay  in  convincing  posterity;  and  then,  leaving  all  to 
Providence,  and  nothing  to  his  personal  influence  with 
the  legislature,  he  carried  nothing  of  consequence,  but 
raised  a  whirlwind  of  opposition.  Nor  did  he  keep 
office-holders  under  discipline  while  conducting  the  pub 
lic  business,  and  make  the  machinery  of  his  adminis 
tration  work  to  one  end,  but  left  those  who  honored 
and  those  who  were  pulling  down  his  administration, 
as  well  as  the  indifferent,  all  tugging  in  the  same  har 
ness.  If  Clay  asked  the  removal  of  some  virulent 
office-holder  who  was  working  against  the  administra 
tion  and  weakening  it,  the  President  objected  by  some 
general  maxim ;  his  line  was  not  drawn  at  faithful  ser 
vice,  with  neutrality  in  politics;  and  even  when  frauds 
at  the  Philadelphia  custom-house  brought  scandal  upon 
his  government,  he  hesitated  to  make  a  precedent  of  dis 
placing  the  officers  there.  Various  other  instances 
might  be  cited.  There  was  a  curious  timidity  notice 
able  here :  that  of  a  liberal  disposition  in  politics,  some 
would  say;  that  of  conscious  guilt  that  his  own  place 
had  been  corruptly  acquired,  said  others;  but  history 
should  pronounce  it  a  constitutional  weakness.  For 
firmness  and  sound  discretion  in  exercising  the  removal 
power  and  maintaining  the  morals  of  the  service  may 
be  found  in  a  governor,  a  general,  a  corporate  manager, 
or  even  a  mayor,  sooner  than  in  the  best-read  scholar 
or  diplomatist  who  has  passed  his  prime  without  ever 
having  been  really  responsible  for  subordinates.  He 
admitted  that  an  officer  should  be  honest  and  com- 


224         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

petent,  and,  on  the  whole,  not  disloyal  to  his  chief ;  but 
he  put  upon  himself  such  a  burden  of  proof  before  he 
would  remove  or  ask  a  resignation  that  discipline  was 
really  impracticable,  nor  did  he  seem  unhappy  that  it 
should  be  so. 

How  incongruous  a  cabinet  Adams  meant  at  first  to 
form  this  writer  has  shown,  as  also  his  prime  error  in 
selecting  a  Secretary  of  State.  His  ideal  was  a  high  one : 
he  meant  to  administer,  not  to  manage;  to  administer 
for  the  people,  not  for  a  party ;  to  carry  out  his  plans  by 
a  policy  which  the  people  themselves  would  spontaneous 
ly  sustain.  Of  his  ability  to  conquer  by  this  ideal  he 
felt  at  the  outset  confident,  over-confident.  He  orig 
inated  ideas,  was  set  and  stubborn  in  his  own  views, 
as  well  as  fearless,  and  hence  yielded  to  advice  rather 
than  changed  his  convictions.  A  sublimated  strain 
ran  through  his  official  utterances,  and  the  earlier  ones 
most  of  all.  But  his  standard  was  too  rigid,  too  ele 
vated,  while  at  the  same  time  he  clung  pertinaciously 
to  his  own  maxims  and  methods.  This  his  cabinet  ad 
visers  soon  saw.  The  course  they  took  was  a  curious 
and  yet  a  needful  one.  They  obtained  permission  to 
scrutinize  the  draft  of  his  annual  message  by  them 
selves  and  minute  the  passages  they  objected  to  before 
discussing  them  with  him,  thus  enabling  themselves  to 
concentrate  criticism  and  impress  their  objections.  It 
was  a  mark  of  his  just  disposition  that  he  yielded  to 
their  wishes  on  this  point,  at  the  same  time  almost  re 
proaching  himself  for  doing  so.  Their  nervousness 
was  lessened  when  he  announced  that  general  recom 
mendations  should  be  confined  to  his  first  and  last  mes 
sages.  The  fear  of  alienating  Virginia  had  not  in 
duced  him  to  tone  down  his  expressions  in  favor  of 
national  improvements  and  a  university,  as  though  the 


ADAMS  AS  PRESIDENT  225 

existing  constitution  sanctioned  them ;  and  when  asked 
to  say  something  soothing  to  South  Carolina,  he  bluntly 
refused,  because  South  Carolina  had  placed  an  uncon 
stitutional  law  upon  her  statute  book  relating  to  the 
blacks,  and  would  not  repeal  it.  In  his  anxiety  to  be 
upright  Adams  would  make  himself  needlessly  severe. 
But  the  effect  of  his  watchful,  even  morbid  self-dis 
cipline,  was  felt  by  those  in  his  constant  confidence,  and 
his  wish  to  do  right  kept  their  intercourse  smooth.  "I 
had  fears  of  Mr.  Adams's  temper  and  disposition," 
wrote  Clay  in  1828,  "but  I  must  say  that  they  have  not 
been  realized;  and  I  have  found  in  him,  since  I  have 
been  associated  with  him  in  the  Executive  government, 
as  little  to  censure  or  condemn  as  I  could  have  expected 
in  any  man." 

No  President  ever  refused  so  ungraciously  to  stretch 
a  point,  however  slight,  for  the  sake  of  doing  a  per 
sonal  favor  to  anybody ;  at  the  same  time,  no  President, 
considering  his  surrounding  circumstances,  ever  stood 
so  much  in  need  of  doing  little  acts  to  make  himself 
popular.  He  would  not  attend  the  Maryland  cattle 
show  when  invited,  and  set  a  precedent  for  being 
claimed  as  part  of  such  exhibitions;  nor  in  declining 
could  he  conceal  his  honest  reasons ;  for  to  such  a  mind 
official  conduct  resolved  itself  into  a  series  of  proposi 
tions,  and  everything  was  to  be  decided  upon  mental 
argument.  The  decision  was  usually  in  favor  of  non- 
action.  When  asked  to  exert  his  influence  in  the  choice 
of  a  Senator  from  one  of  the  States  he  was  angry,  as 
he  might  well  have  been.  He  would  not  give  money 
to  aid  a  political  canvass,  nor  put  his  name  upon  a  sub 
scription  paper.  When  the  head  of  a  military  school 
marched  his  pupils  to  the  White  House  he  would  not 
make  them  a  speech,  because  he  suspected  the  visit  was 


226         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

a  piece  of  quackery  to  get  the  seminary  puffed  into  no 
tice  in  the  public  prints.  He  refused  to  answer  a 
campaign  slander,  even  when  constituents  asked  his 
explanation;  but  we  should  observe  that  the  easy  ex 
pedient  of  interviewing  had  not  thus  early  been  adopted 
by  the  press.  Neither  his  taste  nor  principles  permitted 
him  to  electioneer  by  showing  himself  to  the  people ;  but 
here  he  yielded  something  to  pressure,  for  he  passed 
through  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  the  canvass  being 
a  very  critical  one  for  his  party,  and  really  enjoyed  the 
crowds  and  handshaking.  He  would  not  meet  the 
foes  of  the  administration  on  their  own  ground,  nor 
try  to  bring  presses  to  his  support.  "I  have  observed," 
he  says,  "the  tendency  of  our  electioneering  to  venality, 
and  shall  not  encourage  it."  All  this  honest  obstinacy 
and  rigid  adherence  to  rule  might  have  made  some 
Presidents  vastly  popular;  nor  is  it  likely  that  with 
more  suavity  of  manner  and  a  more  accommodating 
temper  Adams  could  have  turned  the  tide  which  set 
so  strongly  against  him.  He  had  at  the  start  volun 
tarily  taken  odds  too  great  for  any  President  who  owed 
something  to  himself  and  his  party ;  and  this,  after  all, 
was  the  prime  source  of  his  unpopularity. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  canal, 
our  President  discovered  with  pleasure  how  a  charac 
teristic  act  which  strikes  the  fancy  suddenly  may  touch 
the  deepest  chord  of  the  occasion.  He  took  the  spade 
to  break  the  ground;  but  his  strokes  made  no  impres 
sion,  because  the  large  stump  of  a  tree  was  beneath  the 
surface.  He  then  threw  off  his  coat,  applied  the  spade 
once  more,  and  brought  up  a  shovelful  of  earth.  The 
loud  shout  which  burst  forth  from  the  spectators 
showed  that  they  were  roused  by  this  incident  more  than 
by  all  the  rhetoric  of  the  day.  For  once  an  electric 


ADAMS  AS  PRESIDENT  227 

sympathy  between  himself  and  his  audience  was  estab 
lished,  and  he  enjoyed  the  sensation;  but  it  was  a  life 
long  maxim  with  him  not  to  be  sensitive  to  transient 
popular  symptoms,  but  to  let  them  bubble  and  work 
off,  and  look  rather  to  ultimate  than  the  immediate 
effects  of  public  opinion. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

FIRST  ADMINISTRATION  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-first  Congress.  March  4,  i82Q-March  3, 
I83i._§  II.  The  United  States  in  1831.— §  III.  Period  of 
Twenty-second  Congress.  March  4,  i83i-March  3,  1833. 

THERE  seemed  to  the  staid  and  dignified  social 
leaders  of  the  capital  something 
like  a  sudden  irruption  of  barbari-  -^ch^ 
ans  upon  the  little  Rome  on  the  day  Andrew 
Jackson  was  sworn  in  as  President.  ' 'Hurrah  for 
Jackson !"  had  been  the  cry  on  the  streets  ever  since  his 
arrival,  and,  as  Webster  expresses  it,  the  city  was  "full 
of  speculation  and  speculators."  Such  crowds  of  vis 
itors  had  called  upon  him  daily  at  the  tavern  where  he 
lodged,  that  his  committee  of  arrangements  were  very 
anxious  to  have  the  White  House  ready  in  season  for 
the  4th  of  March  reception,  for  the  guests  would  have 
broken  down  the  stairways  and  made  havoc  of  the 
rooms  at  such  pent-up  quarters  as  Gadsby's.  The  day 
of  inauguration  was  warm  and  spring-like.  A  great 
crowd,  numbering  not  less  than  10,000,  blocked  up  the 
vicinity  of  the  eastern  portico  of  the  Capitol,  where  the 
ceremonies  were  to  take  place;  repressed  and  kept  at 
a  proper  distance  by  a  ship's  cable,  which  stretched 
across  about  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  the  long  flight 
of  steps  in  front.  This  was  the  first  time  that  noble 
entrance,  with  its  columns,  one  for  each  State  of  the 
Union,  stood  ready  for  use  in  such  ceremonies.  Jack- 


THE  PEOPLE'S  DAY  229 

son's  tall  form,  as  it  emerged  at  high  noon  from  among 
those  columns,  was  the  signal  for  shouts  from  the  spec 
tators  which  rent  the  air.  Vice-President  Calhoun  had 
at  1 1  o'clock  called  the  Senate  to  order  and  renewed 
his  official  oath.  Jackson  entered  the  Senate  Chamber 
shortly  before  twelve,  and  at  the  appointed  time  the 
procession  of  dignitaries  went  out  to  the  portico. 

The  inaugural  address  was  brief,  fervid  in  expres 
sion,  but  non-committal  except  in  a  promise  or  rather 
threat  of  reform.  "The  recent  demonstration  of  public 
sentiment  inscribes  on  the  list  of  executive  duties,  in 
characters  too  legible  to  be  overlooked,  the  task  of 
reform;  which  will  require  particularly  the  correction 
of  those  abuses  that  have  brought  the  patronage  of  the 
federal  government  into  conflict  with  the  freedom  of 
elections,  and  the  counteraction  of  those  causes  which 
have  disturbed  the  rightful  course  of  appointment,  and 
have  placed  or  continued  power  in  unfaithful  or  in 
competent  hands."  At  the  close  of  this  address  the 
oath  of  office  was  administered  by  the  venerable  Chief 
Justice. 

Out  of  respect  to  his  wife's  memory,  Jackson  had 
signified  a  wish  to  avoid  all  parade  on  this  occasion. 
He  rode  on  horseback  from  the  Capitol  to  the  White 
House  after  the  ceremony  was  over,  a  great  crowd  fol 
lowing  him,  already  encouraged  by  their  success  in 
forcing  the  barricades  at  the  east  front  to  shake  hands 
with  the  man  of  the  people.  A  lively  writer  of  the 
day  portrays  the  scene  which  followed  at  the  palace. 
"The  President  was  literally  pursued  by  a  motley  con 
course  of  people,  riding,  running  helter-skelter,  striving 
who  should  first  gain  admittance  into  the  Executive 
mansion,  where  it  was  understood  that  refreshments 
were  to  be  distributed."  The  halls  of  the  White  House 


230         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

were  filled  with  a  disorderly  rabble,  common  people 
forcing  their  way  into  the  saloons  and  mingling  with 
the  foreigners  and  distinguished  citizens  who  sur 
rounded  the  President.  China  and  glass  were  broken 
in  their  struggle  to  get  at  the  ices  and  cakes,  though 
punch  and  other  drinkables  had  been  carried  out  in 
tubs  and  buckets  to  them ;  but  had  it  been  in  hogsheads 
it  would  have  been  insufficient,  besides  unsatisfactory, 
to  the  mob  who  claimed  equality  in  all  things.  "The 
confusion  became  more  and  more  appalling.  At  one 
moment  the  President,  who  had  retreated  until  he  was 
pressed  against  the  wall  of  the  apartment,  could  only 
be  secured  against  serious  danger  by  a  number  of  gen 
tlemen  linking  arms  and  forming  themselves  into  a 
barrier.  It  was  then  that  the  windows  were  thrown 
open,  and  the  living  torrent  found  an  outlet.  It  was 
the  Peoples  day,  the  People's  President,  and  the  people 
would  rule." 


Inauguration  day  passed,  but  the  mob  of  strange 
faces  was  still  to  be  seen  hovering  about.  Strangers 
filled  the  anteroom  and  lobbies  and  all  public  places, 
though  making  less  free  henceforth  with  the  White 
House  apartments,  and  resolving  themselves  more  into 
knots  of  politicians,  most  of  whom  compared  notes 
freely  and  with  jovial  good  nature,  like  men  who  know 
not  how  soon  a  fellow-struggler  may  get  what  he  wants 
and  be  in  a  position  to  lend  a  helping  hand.  This  was 
not  the  people  all-ruling,  but  the  people  after  office.  A 
great  and  hungry  multitude  swarmed  in  the  city,  raven 
ing  up  and  down  from  morning  to  night;  "too  many 
to  be  fed  without  a  miracle."  The  newspaper  corps 
comprised  a  great  part  of  this  force,  and  it  seemed  as  if 


THE  SPOILS  OF  OFFICE  231 

every  Jackson  editor  in  the  land  had  come  to  quarter 
upon  the  government,  as  though  unable  to  make  a  de 
cent  living  out  of  his  press. 

The  only  line  of  policy  clearly  foreshadowed  when  \ 
Jackson  took  the  oath  of  office  was  "to  reward  his   ! 
friends  and  punish  his  enemies ;"•  and  this  he  relentlessly   \ 
pursued,  whether  the  victim  was  treated  with  anger  or 
courtesy.     At  the  same  time  parasites  gathered  about 
him,  who  fed  his  jealousy  and  his  desire  for  revenge. 
It  .was^mpossible  that  he  should  judge  jDf_the  facts 
calmly  and  act  upon  a  careful  examination.     He  kin- 
died  at  every  spark.     His mind  was  incapable. of  thai 
mature^  and  impartial  investigation  which  alone  enables 
one  to  reach  just  conclusions,  and  impulse  controlled 
his  decision.     Hut  Jackson's  intuitions  were  keen :  a 
glance  of  his  searching  eye  told  him  more  of  a  man 
than  volumes  of  testimony;  and  yet  intuitions  will  lead 
astray.     His  want_of  political  information  "was  com-  ; 
pensated  by. native  sagacity.;  and  the  great  secret  of  his 
success  consisted  in  keeping  the  common  people,  the 
majority,  constantly  by  his  side. 

Though  riot  to  be  resisted  by  mortal  successfully, 
Jackson  had  little  blind  avenues  of  approach,  by  which 
one  artful,  and  at  the  same  not  unfaithful  to  his  inter 
ests,  might  turn  him  with  surprising  ease.  Va.ni.ty  was 
a  weakness  with  him ;  and  the  tale  is  at  least  plausible 
that  one  who  could  not  get  an  office  he  wanted  by  the 
customary  method  won  it  and  the  general's  heart  be 
sides  by  asking  the  gift  of  his  old  tobacco-pipe.  Jack 
son  had  a  brusque  humor  and  enjoyed  lively  company. 
He  liked  young  men  about  him  who  talked  to  the  point, 
knew  how  to  give  and  take,  would  stand  up  without 
flinching  to  defend  him,  and  trod  on  his  foibles  very 
gently.  Such  men  learned  to  love  the  old  hero,  and 


232         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

found  promotion  easy;  for  where  Jackson's  heart  was 
enlisted  he  was  very  tender,  and  it  was  his  maxim  never 
to  forget  friend  or  enemy.  He  carried  the  master  in 
his  manner,  but  could  make  men  feel  it  a  pleasure  to 
serve  him.  In  the  midst  of  his  bitterest  proscription 
of  the  Adams  office-holders,  or,  as  he  called  it,  "putting 
down  misrule,"  during  the  summer  of  1829,  his  private 
letters  to  friends  in  Tennessee  show  that  he  was  a  sick, 
unhappy  old  man,  weary  with  the  buzz  of  beggars  and 
sycophants  about  him,  and  longing  to  retire  and  be  at 
rest. 


Angrily  as  the  friends  of  internal  improvement  pro 
tested  against  the  President's  repeated  control  of  ma 
jorities  by  his  veto,  the  policy  he  pursued  was  on  the 
whole  a  popular  one,  and  well  calculated  to  allay  dis 
content  at  the  south.  But  South  Carolina  nullification 
was  now  coming  in  sight,  and  a  celebrated  debate  which 
belongs  to  the  first  session  exposed  its  claims  and  its 
fallacies  to  the  country.  When  South  Carolina  put 
forward  her  "exposition  and  protest,"  she  looked  for 
rescue  to  Andrew  Jackson.  His  accession  to  office 
checked  for  a  time  all  excitement  upon  the  tariff  ques 
tion,  and  he  came  in  under  circumstances  which  might 
well  impose  the  prudence  he  practised;  for  the  South 
had  voted  for  him  as  the  friend  of  southern  interests, 
while  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  West  looked 
upon  him  as  a  friend  of  the  tariff.  But  Calhoun  and 
the  South  Carolina  leaders  had  not  for  a  moment  laid 
aside  their  scheme  of  resistance  to  the  obnoxious  act 
of  1828, — the  "tariff  of  abominations,"  as  it  was  called, 
— and  they  prepared  to  bring  nullification  forward  at 
an  early  opportunity  in  a  more  imposing  manner  than 


SOUTHERN  NULLIFIERS  233 

had  ever  before  been  attempted.  They  meant  to  test 
thus  the  strength  of  their  cause  before  Congress  and 
the  new  administration ;  and  so  infatuated  was  Calhoun 
for  the  moment  that  he  imagined  it  in  his  power  to 
draw  Jackson  himself  into  the  meshes  of  his  finely- 
woven  theory  of  State  sovereignty,  and  induce  the 
national  lion  to  stretch  out  his  paws  submissively  to 
be  clipped.  The  arena  selected  for  a  first  impression 
was  the  Senate,  where  the  great  chief  himself  presided 
and  guided  the  onset  with  his  eye.  Hayne,  South  Car 
olina's  foremost  Senator,  was  the  chosen  champion; 
and  the  cause  of  his  State,  both  in  its  right  and  wrong 
side,  could  have  found  no  abler  exponent  while  Cal- 
houn's  official  station  kept  him  from  the  floor.  It  has 
been  said  that  Hayne  was  Calhoun's  sword  and  buckler, 
and  that  he  returned  to  the  contest  refreshed  each  morn 
ing  by  nightly  communions  with  the  Vice-President, 
drawing  auxiliary  supplies  from  the  well-stored  arsenal 
of  his  powerful  and  subtle  mind.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
Hayne  was  a  ready  and  copious  orator,  a  highly-edu 
cated  lawyer,  a  man  of  varied  accomplishments,  shining 
as  writer,  speaker,  and  counsellor,  equally  qualified  to 
draw  up  a  bill  or  to  advocate  it,  quick  to  discern,  and, 
though  brilliant,  disposed  to  view  things  on  the  prac 
tical  side.  His  person  was  flexible,  about  the  medium 
height  and  well  proportioned ;  his  face  pleasant  and  ex 
pressive,  and,  though  serious,  lighting  up  readily  with 
a  smile;  his  manners  irresistibly  cordial  and  easy,  win 
ning  strangers  at  first  sight.  He  turned  readily  from 
business  to  society,  and  pursued  with  equal  zest  the 
triumphs  of  the  forum  and  ball-room.  A  graceful 
adaptiveness  at  all  points  to  a  life  of  distinction  was 
his  striking  quality;  rugged  inequalities  in  his  nature 
there  were  none.  Gifted  for  a  life  of  public  eminence, 


234         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

nobly  born,  bearing  a  Revolutionary  name  pathetic  in 
its  memories,  well  fortified  by  wealth  and  marriage  con 
nections,  dignified,  never  vulgar  nor  unmindful  of  the 
feelings  of  those  with  whom  he  mingled,  Hayne  moved 
in  an  atmosphere  where  lofty  and  chivalrous  honor  was 
the  ruling  sentiment.  But  it  was  the  honor  of  a  caste ; 
and  the  struggling  bread-winners  of  society,  the  great 
commonalty,  he  little  studied  or  understood.  This  was 
the  man  to  fire  an  aristocracy  of  fellow-citizens  ready 
to  arm  when  their  interests  were  in  danger,  and  upon 
him  it  devolved  to  advance  the  cause  of  South  Carolina, 
break  down  the  tariff,  and  fascinate  the  Union  with  the 
new  rattlesnake  theories. 

The  great  debate,  which  culminated  in  Hayne' s  en 
counter  with  Webster,  came  about  in  a  somewhat  casual 
way.  Senator  Foote  of  Connecticut  submitted  a  prop 
osition  inquiring  into  the  expediency  of  limiting  the 
sales  of  public  lands  to  those  already  in  the  market. 
This  seemed  like  an  eastern  spasm  of  jealousy  at  the 
progress  of  the  west.  Benton  was  rising  in  renown  as 
the  advocate  not  only  of  western  settlers,  but  of  a  new 
theory  that  the  public  lands  should  be  given  away  in 
stead  of  sold  to  them.  He  joined  Hayne  in  using  this 
opportunity  to  try  to  detach  the  West  from  the  Eas^, 
and  restore  the  old  co-operation  of  the  West  and  the 
South  against  New  England.  The  discussion  took  a 
wide  range,  going  back  to  topics  that  had  agitated  the 
country  before  the  constitution  was  formed.  It  was 
of  a  partisan  and  censorious  character,  and  drew  nearly 
all  the  chief  Senators  out.  But  the  topic  which  became 
the  leading  feature  of  the  whole  debate  and  gave  it  an 
undying  interest  was  that  of  nullification,  in  which 
Hayne  and  Webster  came  forth  as  the  chief  antagonists. 
Webster  had  seen  the  angry  drift  of  the  discussion,  and 


HAYNE  AND  WEBSTER  235 

felt  that  it  rested  upon  himself  to  uphold  the  cause  of 
the  Union,  and  his  own  State  besides,  from  the  men 
aces  and  reproaches  which  the  southerner  hurled  so 
recklessly.  He  believed  that  men  were  already  plot 
ting  to  break  up  the  Union,  and  that  the  people  must 
be  aroused  to  vigilance.  In  politics,  at  the  same  time, 
his  position  was  independent.  His  alliance  with  Adams 
had  not  been  so  close  that  the  sense  of  defeat  should 
make  him  either  crestfallen  or  rancorous.  Towards 
new  parties  his  course  was  uncommitted;  he  tended 
to  Clay,  but  he  was  no  man's  man,  though  a  true 
son  of  New  England,  and  to  the  fibre  of  his  soul  an 
American.  Hayne  launched  his  confident  javelin  at 
the  New  England  States.  He  accused  them 
of  a  desire  to  check  the  growth  of  the  west  janl8?°:25< 
in  the  interests  of  protection.  Webster  re 
plied  to  his  speech  the  next  day,  and  left  not  a  shred  of 
the  charge,  baseless  as  it  was.  Inflamed  and  mortified 
at  this  repulse,  Hayne  soon  returned  to  the  assault, 
primed  with  a  two-days'  speech,  which  at  great  length 
vaunted  the  patriotism  of  South  Carolina  and  bitterly 
attacked  New  England,  dwelling  particularly  upon  her 
conduct  during  the  late  war.  It  was  a  speech  deliv 
ered  before  a  crowded  auditory,  and  loud  were  the 
southern  exultations  that  he  was  more  than  a  match  for 
Webster.  Strange  was  it,  however,  that  in  heaping 
reproaches  upon  the  Hartford  Convention  he  did  not 
mark  how  nearly  its  leaders  had  mapped  out  the  same 
line  of  opposition  to  the  national  government  that  his 
State  now  proposed  to  take,  both  relying  upon  the 
arguments  of  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions  of 
1798-99. 

Webster  rose  the  next  day  in  his  seat  to  make  his 
reply.      He  had  allowed  himself  but  a  single  night 


236         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

from  eve  to  morn  to  prepare  for  a  critical  and  crown 
ing  occasion.  But  his  reply  was  gathered  from  the 

choicest  arguments  and  the  richest  thoughts 
Jan.  .6.  that  had  long  floated  through  his  brain  while 

this  crisis  was  gathering;  and  bringing  these 
materials  together  in  lucid  and  compact  shape,  he 
calmly  composed  and  delivered  before  another  crowd 
ed  and  breathless  auditory  a  speech  full  of  burning 
passages,  which  will  live  as  long  as  the  American 
Union,  and  the  grandest  effort  of  his  life.  Two  lead 
ing  ideas  predominated  in  this  reply,  and  with  respect  to 
either  Hayne  was  not  only  answered  but  put  to  silence. 
First,  New  England  was  vindicated.  As  a  pious  son 
of  Federalism,  Webster  went  the  full  length  of  the  re 
quired  defence.  Some  of  his  historical  deductions  may 
be  questioned;  but  far  above  all  possible  error  on  the 
part  of  her  leaders  stood  colonial  and  Revolutionary 
New  England,  and  the  sturdy,  intelligent,  and  thriving 
people  whose  loyalty  to  the  Union  had  never  failed,  and 
whose  home,  should  ill  befall  the  nation,  would  yet 
prove  liberty's  last  shelter.  Next,  the  Union  was  held 
up  to  view  in  all  its  strength,  symmetry,  and  integrity, 
reposing  in  the  ark  of  the  Constitution,  no  longer  an 
experiment,  as  in  the  days  when  Hamilton  and  Jeffer 
son  contended  for  shaping  its  course,  but  ordained  and 
established  by  and  for  the  people,  to  secure  the  blessings 
of  liberty  to  all  posterity.  It  was  not  a  Union  to  be 
torn  up  without  bloodshed ;  for  nerves  and  arteries  were 
interwoven  with  its  roots  and  tendrils,  sustaining  the 
lives  and  interests  of  twelve  millions  of  inhabitants. 
No  hanging  over  the  abyss  of  disunion,  no  weighing  of 
the  chances,  no  doubting  as  to  what  the  constitution 
was  worth,  no  placing  of  liberty  before  Union,  but 
"liberty  and  union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  insep- 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION  237 

arable."  This  was  the  tenor  of  Webster's  speech,  and 
nobly  did  the  country  respond  to  it.  There  was  no  ap 
prehension  of  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  slavery 
and  freedom;  but  the  liberty  was  that  liberty  which 
permitted  of  holding  men  in  bondage,  and  the  Union 
that  product  of  the  constitution  which  held  in  alliance 
the  ambitions  of  States  with  their  several  slave  and  free 
systems  of  society.  Thirty  years  later,  when  South 
Carolina  forced  the  experiment  now  broached  in  debate, 
Webster's  immortal  sentiment,  though  he  was  then  in 
the  grave,  first  brought  the  loyal  part  of  the  people  to 
their  feet,  and  the  South  soon  learned  that  peaceable 
secession  was  the  wildest  of  delusions ;  then  the  graver 
lesson  was  added  that  by  once  withdrawing  his  peculiar 
institutions  from  the  protection  of  the  constitution, 
their  shield  hitherto  against  the  condemnation  of  man 
kind,  the  slaveholder  had  exposed  them  to  certain  ruin. 
The  new  heresy  of  nullification  was  in  this  debate 
stated  on  the  one  side  and  refuted  on  the  other.  What 
Hayne  and  the  incessant  thinker  from  whom  he  drew 
his  inspiration  preferred  for  popularity's  sake  to  call 
the  States'  right  doctrine  as  declared,  was  that  "in  case 
of  a  plain,  palpable  violation  of  the  constitution,  a  State 
may  interpose"  and  arrest  or  nullify  the  law  within  her 
own  borders  for  her  own  protection ;  a  statement  of  it 
self  too  cautious  to  justify  its  practical  application  to 
any  such  case  as  that  of  the  tariff,  where,  if  any  infrac 
tion  could  be  claimed  at  all,  it  consisted  merely  in  raising 
duties,  properly  laid,  to  an  excessive  rate.  Against  such 
a  doctrine  Webster  showed  that  this  government  was  the 
independent  offspring  of  the  popular  will,  not  the  crea 
ture  of  State  legislatures,  nor  obliged  to  act  through 
State  agency;  in  other  words,  a  national  government, 
possessing  within  itself  all  the  powers  necessary  to  en- 


23 8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

force  its  own  laws  and  for  its  own  preservation;  and 
that  no  State  nor  combination  of  States  has  the  power 
to  arrest  or  prevent  the  execution  of  a  law  of  the  United 
States. 


We  are  now  at  the  portal  of  an  epoch  full  of  eager 
progress  and  the  crowding,  trampling  ranks  of  hu 
manity.  It  is  an  epoch  in  which  science 
x83i.  and  sentiment,  glory  and  degradation,  the 
desire  of  material  substance  and  devotion 
to  principle,  are  found  strangely  blended;  until 
above  the  din  of  industry  is  heard  the  roar  of  the 
cannon,  and  the  smoke  curls  upward  from  many  a  battle 
field,  where  the  stubborn  Americans,  invincible  when 
united,  have  turned  their  arms  and  energy  upon  one 
another.  Let  us  take  of  the  age  we  are  leaving,  already 
becoming  a  primitive  one  by  comparison,  a  brief  retro 
spect,  like  one  who  ascends  a  mountain  road  and  looks 
back  for  the  last  time  upon  the  green  meadows  and  wavy 
slopes  gently  nestling  in  the  perspective,  before  the 
high  mountain  crests  and  the  ravines  furrowed  with 
deep  lines  appear,  the  picture  of  fierce  but  careworn 
nature. 


America  and  her  institutions  were  no  longer  to  be 
expounded  by  superficial  travellers  alone,  but  by  politi 
cal  philosophers  like  DeTocqueville,Grund,  and  Harriet 
Martineau,  who  came  to  appreciate  and  not  disparage. 
The  very  name  "American/'  now  bestowed  upon  the 
people  of  the  United  States  by  universal  consent,  iden 
tified  them  with  a  continent ;  for  in  the  New  World,  at 
least,  our  rank  was  first,  and  our  example  fast  pervad- 


THE  UNION  IN  1831  239 

ing.  The  whole  tendency  of  the  last  fifteen  years  had 
been  to  establish  the  American  Union  more  firmly  as  a 
nation.  For,  composite  and  complex  as  this  govern 
ment  doubtless  was,  so  that  each  State  might  regulate 
and  administer  independently  the  mass  of  those  con 
cerns  which  affect  the  individual  in  his  home  and  busi 
ness  relations,  an  elevated  love  of  country  found  its  only 
grand  expression  in  the  growth  and  prosperity  of  the 
whole  Union.  This  central  government,  limited  and 
specific  as  might  be  its  objects,  had  yet  the  greater 
energy  and  directness;  the  starry  flag,  the  army  and 
navy,  ocean  commerce,  diplomatic  intercourse,  the 
power  to  make  war  or  peace,  to  acquire  and  regulate 
new  territory  and  increase  from  time  to  time  the  mem 
bership  of  States,  all  were  national.  Born  of  the  im 
mortal  strife,  this  Union  had  been  firmly  established 
by  a  second  war  for  independence.  The  names  of 
Washington,  Franklin,  Adams,  Jefferson,  Hamilton, 
shone  in  the  same  glorious  constellation.  The  magnif 
icent  domain  of  this  nation,  enlarged  by  peaceful  pur 
chase,  the  procreation  of  new  States  while  old  ones  re 
mained  in  territory  contracted,  the  constant  move  and 
interchange  of  population,  the  increasing  facilities  of 
travel,  traffic,  and  diffusion  of  ideas,  all  tended  to  draw 
American  States  closer  in  laws  and  manners,  and  to 
foster  both  the  national  sentiment  and  a  sense  of  inter 
dependence,  which  presented  the  Union  as  indispensable 
to  the  well-being  of  the  whole  country.  Under  such  con 
ditions  State  pride  could  hardly  flourish  beyond  the 
borders  of  the  old  thirteen,  nor  there,  unless  citizens  of 
colonial  descent  were  haughty  to  new-comers  and  new 
ideas. 

It  was  an  error  not  rarely  committed  by  strangers  to 
judge  of  the  whole  United  States  by  one  part.     Massa- 


24o         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

chusetts  and  Louisiana,  Pennsylvania  and  South  Caro 
lina,  were  really  as  unlike  in  habits  and  character  as 
England  and  Scotland,  or  so  many  different  kingdoms 
of  Germany.  Hence  Europeans  were  often  misled  by 
gossiping  writers  upon  American  life,  like  Mrs.  Trol- 
lope,  who  saw  but  one  phase  of  it,  and  stretched  the 
truth  to  broaden  a  caricature.  Every  State,  every  sec 
tion,  bore  marks  of  its  peculiar  origin,  and  there  were 
palpable  differences  in  manners,  traits,  and  social  insti 
tutions,  which  to  fairly  explain  and  reconcile  required 
one  to  trace  carefully  the  threads  of  local  chronology, 
if  not  to  make  a  careful  tour  of  the  whole  Union. 
Those  differences  we  have  already  sketched ;  and  it  only 
remains  to  add  that  in  a  people  like  ours,  essentially 
modern,  the  influences  which  moulded  each  separate 
State  were  easily  studied.  For  though  Europe  fur 
nished  the  starting-point,  yet  the  European  countries 
whence  we  were  derived  had  each  its  national  character 
fully  formed  when  American  colonization  began.  Brit 
ish  emigration  alone,  that  most  powerful  element  of  all, 
the  foundation  of  British  colonies  on  the  various  points 
of  the  Atlantic  coast,  was  accompanied  by  conditions  so 
strikingly  different  as  to  give  to  the  Anglo-Americans 
and  their  offspring  a  strong  family  likeness,  and  at  the 
same  time  an  unlikeness.  Especially,  at  the  present  stage 
of  our  development  as  a  people,  was  it  needful  to  distin 
guish  between  Americans  of  slave  and  free  States,  and 
those  again  of  communities  old  and  new.  Only  in  a 
free  State  might  one  labor  for  himself  and  win  position 
by  it;  only  in  a  new  one  did  he  escape  conventional 
society  and  the  usual  exaction  of  deference  to  the  local 
aristocracy.  Lines  of  demarcation  like  these  were 
graven  deeply  into  the  Anglo-American  nature. 

Nothing  was  more  firmly  implanted  by  this  time  in 


AMERICAN  CHARACTER  241 

the  American  nature  than  a  fundamental  faith  in  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  a  conviction  that  the  will 
of  the  majority  should  rule.  The  principle  was  ap 
plied  in  private  co-operation,  secular  or  religious,  as 
well  as  the  affairs  of  state ;  and  even  they  who  happened 
to  be  in  a  present  minority  assented  to  the  rule,  knowing 
well  its  value  to  themselves  should  they  hereafter  pre 
ponderate  in  numbers,  as  they  hoped,  and  turn  the 
scales.  This  majority  doctrine  was  the  vital  function 
of  our  American  system ;  for  it  imposed  self-discipline, 
pointed  to  persuasion  as  the  true  means  of  acquiring 
personal  influence,  and  kept  the  general  society  con 
stantly  armed  against  the  arrogance  of  its  individual 
members.  Americans  no  longer  owned  a  preference 
for  monarchies;  they  agreed  in  the  support  of  popular 
government,  and  the  only  essential  point  in  dispute  re 
lated  to  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  political 
rights  to  men  formerly  disqualified.  Under  such  a 
system  imagination  would  find  less  scope  than  the  sense 
of  civic  responsibility;  errors  were  committed,  and 
abuses  suffered  through  ignorance  or  a  lax  supervision 
of  the  people's  servants,  but  correction  followed  dis 
covery,  with  a  temperate  exercise  of  justice.  In  the 
ruling  race  of  this  Union  the  love  of  freedom  and  im 
provement  was  admirably  blended  with  respect  for  the 
laws  and  the  disposition  to  deal  moderately  in  affairs; 
and  hence  the  vast  superiority  of  this  republican  experi 
ment  as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  turbulent  races  of 
Spanish  America.  Politics  interested  all,  and  its  pas 
sions  might  sometimes  provoke  scenes  of  violence;  but 
violence  recoiled  upon  those  who  attempted  it,  and 
every  open  attempt  of  a  minority  to  wrest  a  victory  by 
force  was  frowned  down.  The  danger  under  our  peace 
ful  system  consisted  rather  in  the  fraudulent  effort  of 


242         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

partisans  to  figure  a  majority  by  bribery,  secret  intimi 
dation,  a  corrupt  ballot,  and  the  falsifying  of  returns; 
and  what  made  that  danger  the  greater  when  men  un 
dertook  to  live  by  politics,  was  the  necessity  all  politi 
cians  were  under,  as  a  class,  of  paying  court  to  the 
people  in  order  to  rise.  Flatterers  and  time-servers 
might  thus  drive  high-minded  and  sincere  statesmen 
from  their  seats.  These  were  evils  to  be  watched  and 
checked,  if  not  wholly  prevented ;  and  evils  will  abound 
sufficiently  under  every  form  of  government.  Birth 
and  wealth  excited  envy;  but  every  citizen  of  superior 
talent,  having  a  genuine  good  to  accomplish,  was  likely 
to  find  his  true  field  of  public  usefulness,  if  he  perse 
vered.  Hitherto,  at  least,  in  American  history,  the 
chief  honors  of  the  republic  had  fallen  to  the  virtuous 
and  intelligent,  and  patriotism  felt  the  inspiration  of 
great  examples. 

If  the  pride  of  the  American  in  his  nation  had  at  this 
period  something  of  morbid  solicitude  that  his  visitors 
should  feel  as  he  did,  we  must  not  fail  to  respect  the 
seriousness  of  purpose  with  which  he  was  working  out 
a  noble  experiment  against  the  prejudices  of  civilized 
Europe.  He  wished  his  cause  to  be  fairly  stated 
abroad,  and  was  angry  when  it  was  not.  His  earnest 
ness  made  him  espouse  in  feeling  the  cause  of  liberty 
throughout  the  world.  Wherever  humanity  fought  for 
its  rights,  wherever  the  yoke  of  tyranny  was  shaken  off 
and  men  contended  to  be  free,  there  might  be  found  the 
American  heart.  The  first  breezes  of  the  French  revo 
lution  sent  the  blood  leaping  in  our  veins.  We  were  the 
first  of  nations  to  extend  to  Bolivar  and  the  Spanish 
Americans  sympathy  and  welcome;  the  Greeks  and 
their  cause  had  our  early  God-speed;  Kossuth,  Gari 
baldi,  in  turn,  won  later  our  enthusiasm.  Indeed  pop- 


AMERICAN  MANNERS  243 

ular  feeling  in  the  American  Union  was  often  so  fever 
ish  when  thus  stimulated,  that  those  responsible  for 
affairs  kept  with  difficulty  that  path  of  neutrality  which 
sound  policy  and  tradition  enjoined;  often  the  popular 
excitement  spent  itself  in  meetings  and  contributions, 
and  then  it  was  discovered  that  impulse  had  carried 
us  beyond  the  bounds  of  rational  judgment.  Cold  cal 
culation  and  interest  could  not  sway  the  American  feel 
ing,  but  the  prudent  after-thought  saved  us  from  folly. 
It  seemed  often  as  if  the  American  knew  no  empire  less 
than  the  universal  heart  of  mankind;  for  in  whatever 
community  public  opinion  and  the  will  of  the  majority 
could  hold  a  realm  in  steady  obedience,  there  was  the 
American  fatherland. 


To  unlock  American  manners  at  this  age  one  must 
recall  the  varied  circumstances  of  local  settlement  and 
the  heterogeneous  elements  of  which  American  society 
was  compounded  in  consequence.  Old  Dutch  customs, 
which  Irving  so  well  describes,  had  left  their  trace  in 
Manhattan  Island  and  along  the  shores  of  the  Hudson ; 
wherever  they  might  congregate,  our  foreign  immi 
grants,  the  Irish  and  Germans  in  particular,  kept  up 
some  social  observances  of  the  old  country;  but  what 
ever  was  most  striking  and  permanent  in  American 
manners  was  chiefly  derived  from  England,  the  hive 
of  these  Atlantic  colonies.  If  we  were  less  provincial 
than  formerly,  it  was  because  of  habits  engendered  in 
our  independent  and  strange  surroundings.  In  most 
respects  the  federal  government  was  subordinate  to  the 
State  in  moulding  the  institutions  of  local  society ;  but 
through  all,  save  in  the  remote  frontiers  first  colonized 
by  the  Spanish  and  French,  worked  the  influence  of  the 


244         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

English  common  law,  which  is  a  law  of  custom  or  of 
ancient  decrees  crumbling  into  custom.  Between 
Northern  and  Southern  society  ran  the  boldest  line  of 
demarcation;  the  West  reproducing  the  habits  of  that 
section  which  dominated  in  its  birth,  but  with  a  racier 
flavor. 

The  leading  feature  of  American  society  as  a  whole 
was  its  commonplaceness,  the  unpicturesque  level  it 
afforded.  And  to  dwell  chiefly  upon  the  average  social 
life  in  our  free  States,  where  the  busy  hum  was  loudest, 
few,  very  few  Americans  could  afford  to  indulge  in  idle 
leisure.  In  older  centres  of  fashion,  like  New  York,  Phil 
adelphia,  and  Boston,  and  inmost  small  towns  of  colonial 
pedigree,  might  be  found  some  ruling  social  set  which 
nursed  its  little  century  of  traditions,  and  skipped  the 
grandfather  to  quarter  their  arms  among  the  shadows 
of  remote  ancestors  in  other  lands.  The  ambition  of 
exclusiveness  is  Anglo-Saxon,  if  not  universal ;  but  the 
laws  and  the  circumstances  of  American  life  deny  it  a 
handsome  scope.  Here  one  ladder  serves  for  rising, 
another  for  descending;  laws  of  inheritance  break  up 
a  fortune  into  fragments;  the  favor  of  the  people  is 
essential  to  public  preferment.  As  for  a  leisure  class 
like  that  in  England  which  the  author  of  "Pelham" 
described, — men  devoted  to  club  life  and  frivolous 
pleasure,  born  to  fortunes  which  they  were  restrained 
from  consuming,  yawning  out  of  bed  at  noon,  and 
spending  the  night  at  balls  or  gaming-houses,  after  an 
hour's  lounge  in  Parliament,  to  which  the  pocket  bor 
ough  furnished  a  seat, — no  such  class  yet  existed  in 
America.  What  inducement  had  the  foreigner  of 
wealth  or  refined  habits  to  migrate  hither  ?  It  was  for 
the  poor,  the  industrious,  those  without  large  means  or 
influence  at  home,  that  this  country  presented  its  at- 


AMERICAN  BUSINESS  245 

traction.  Its  charm  lay  in  the  wide  diffusion  of  public 
and  social  opportunities,  and  the  real  phenomenon  of 
this  American  life  was  that  here,  beyond  every  other 
age  or  country  in  the  world's  history,  the  mass  of  com 
mon  people  were  intelligent  and  free.  All  our  fashion 
able  and  aristocratic  distinctions  were  but  as  lace  dra 
pery  floating  out  of  an  open  window. 

Of  American  methods  in  business,  we  have  already 
spoken.  And  again  must  the  reader  listen  to  those 
sounds  of  ceaseless  activity  which  in  the  United  States 
filled  each  observing  stranger  with  astonishment  be 
cause  it  was  so  earnest  and  so  universal.  No  one  in 
these  free  States  felt  as  if  he  could  afford  to  be  idle. 
Even  the  best  endowed  and  the  best  educated,  with  rare 
exceptions,  pursued  some  occupation,  and  our  learned 
professions  were  full  of  distinguished  men  who  earned 
for  their  families  the  moderate  income.  Of  all  who 
possessed  a  fortune  scarce  one-quarter  part  had  inher 
ited  it;  the  rest  gained  wealth  by  their  own  industry, 
and  after  acquiring  habits  of  toil  and  economy  which 
were  seldom  abandoned  in  later  life.  It  cost  as  much 
care  to  keep  a  fortune  as  to  make  it,  such  were  the  risks 
in  this  ever-moving  mass  of  society.  Scarcely  feeling 
that  he  had  laid  up  enough  to  retire  upon,  the  Amer 
ican  pursued  his  busy  schemes  to  the  last  moment;  yet 
for  counteracting  the  miserly  tendency  in  the  individual 
there  was  always  a  surrounding  atmosphere  of  social 
influences  to  brace  him  up  and  make  him  feel  that  as  a 
public  servant  or  public  benefactor  he  owed  the  duty 
of  a  good  citizen.  This  regard  for  public  opinion  made 
wealth  in  America  a  great  lever ;  rich  men  did  penance 
for  a  stingy  youth,  not  in  their  wills  alone,  but  by  liberal 
gifts  to  churches,  colleges,  and  hospitals  while  they 
lived;  and  the  community,  by  advertising  their  good 


246         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

deeds,  indirectly  added  to  their  store.  In  a  society  like 
ours  there  was  a  certain  policy  in  doing  good  with 
wealth  which  fortified  the  nobler  impulses ;  for  religion 
and  charity  both  depended  upon  voluntary  support ;  tax 
ation,  too,  and  the  whole  system  of  popular  government 
rested  upon  the  wealthier.  Wealth  emphatically  was 
power ;  and  the  newly  rich  even  in  the  older  cities  trod 
close  upon  the  heels  of  an  aristocracy  which  boasted 
blood  but  no  money,  while  in  new  and  robust  centres 
of  life  their  social  lead  was  irresistible.  Scholars  and 
professional  men  already  felt  the  need  of  their  patron 
age,  and,  though  popular  honor  might  consist  with  hon 
est  poverty,  private  comfort  and  advantage  sought  to 
expand  by  riches  and  found  a  family  name.  Three 
rich  Americans  of  this  period,  all  public-spirited  and 
identified  with  three  great  cities,  were  of  humble  extrac 
tion  :  Girard  of  Philadelphia,  Astor  of  New  York,  Law 
rence  of  Boston, — the  banker,  the  real-estate  investor, 
the  founder  of  the  cotton-mills. 

Fourier  writes  of  "industrial  feudalism"  as  the  mas 
ter-spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century.  These  barons  of 
industry,  of  the  bank,  the  mill,  or  the  carrier  company, 
still  less  of  the  stock  market,  had  scarcely  yet  founded 
their  strong  castles,  though  the  force  of  organized  cap 
ital  swept  below  the  surface  of  business  like  some  hid 
den  current.  Monopolies  as  yet  there  were  none, 
except  perhaps  in  banking.  Occupations  were  diversi 
fied.  That  minute  perfection  in  a  single  industry 
which  competition  had  produced  abroad  was  scarcely 
known  here,  but  for  all  other  work  the  American  was 
well  adapted.  With  canals  to  be  dug,  towns  to  be 
founded  and  built  up,  forests  cleared  away,  factories 
started,  mines  disemboweled,  there  was  abundance  of 
work  from  the  highest  to  the  humblest,  and  the  Irish 


AMERICAN  INDUSTRY  247 

bog-trotter  who  could  handle  a  spade  or  pickaxe  might 
feel  sure  of  an  honest  living.  One  industry  fostered 
another.  Consequently,  our  manners  and  customs  were 
those  of  a  society  hard  at  work  and  intent  almost  to 
enthusiasm  on  subduing  the  material  world.  Here  was 
to  be  seen  a  vast  country,  much  of  it  still  in  nature's 
primeval  wilderness,  and  a  vigorous  race  hacking  and 
hewing  in  all  directions,  preparing  forest  lands  for 
farming,  and  farm-lands  next  for  a  close  urban  popula 
tion.  Every  true  citizen  carried  some  speculation  in 
his  brain, — a  back  street  which  would  open  up  house- 
lots  in  his  potato-field,  a  railroad  or  canal  which  would 
bring  his  town  half  a  day  nearer  than  the  next  to  mar 
ket,  some  snug  venture  with  his  friends  in  a  coal 
mine,  a  cotton-mill,  or  a  western  township.  His  proj 
ect  was  feasible  usually  if  only  the  country  would  grow 
up  to  it  fast  enough.  So  in  our  patents  utility  was 
sought;  of  perpetual-motion  machines  little  was  left, 
but  ingenuity  was  hard  at  work  upon  labor-saving  im 
plements  for  threshing,  washing,  churning,  shelling 
corn,  cutting  straw,  and  the  like.  Whatever  the  Amer 
ican  took  in  hand  he  tried  to  make  productive,  to  bring 
out  two  blades  of  grass  where  one  had  grown  before. 
Nor  did  he  hoard  and  save  like  the  Dutch,  but  he  in 
vested.  Usury  laws  still  prevailed,  but  our  new  States 
allured  capital  by  the  allowance  of  liberal  rates  of  in 
terest,  and  wherever  the  law  was  harsh  devices  were 
common  for  evading  it. 

"Such  unity  of  purpose  and  sympathy  of  feeling," 
writes  the  pert  Mrs.  Trollope,  "nowhere  else  exist,  ex 
cept,  perhaps,  in  an  ant's  nest." 


But  the  phenomenon  of  American  development  was 


248         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

the  growth  of  the  great  West.  Solitude  and  privation 
founded  this  most  typical  civilization.  Two  or  three 
hundred  farmers,  who  dwelt  far  apart  in  little  log 
cabins,  with  scarce  a  human  companion  outside  the 
family  nest,  sowed  the  seed  of  happy  towns  and  villages, 
many  of  which  had  sprung  up  and  blossomed  before  the 
founder's  eyes.  These  barons  of  the  quarter-section, 
settling  upon  acres  which  cost  often  the  last  dollars  one 
could  scrape  together,  would  put  up  each  his  mis 
erable  hut,  and  proceed  to  cut  and  clear  and  plant  In 
dian-corn,  with  no  ready  capital  but  a  few  blankets,  a 
skillet,  rifle,  and  axe,  and  the  two-horse  wagon  which 
brought  him  many  a  day's  journey  with  his  family.  A 
strong  arm  and  a  stout  heart,  a  loving  helpmate,  and 
God  over  all,  these  were  his  dependence  and  his  thought, 
as  he  waded  through  the  long  grass  wet  with  evening 
dews,  his  gun  on  his  shoulder,  bringing  home  the  game 
which  served  for  food.  Hundreds  sank  under  the  ex 
posure,  for  fever  and  ague  exhaled  from  those  un- 
drained  swamps,  and  no  doctor  was  near  to  relieve  the 
wife  in  childbirth  or  set  the  broken  leg;  but  they  who 
bore  such  privations  grew  tough  and  wiry  in  the  out- 
of-door  life.  What  wonder,  then,  that  the  Western 
patriarch  who  had  once  carried  his  grain  twelve  miles 
to  be  ground  grew  to  be  proud  and  even  boastful  when 
population  pressed  about  him,  and  he  had  wealth,  in 
fluence,  and  the  comforts  of  life  for  his  last  years? 
This  pride  and  boastfulness  still  permeated  Cincinnati, 
that  first  settlement  in  this  modern  world  which  in 
twenty-five  years  had  grown  from  an  acorn  of  the 
forest  wild  into  a  thriving  city  of  more  than  30,000 
inhabitants ;  for  though  first  settled  in  1 789,  it  was  not 
laid  out  with  building-lots  until  1808.  This  "wonder 
of  the  West,"  this  "prophet's  gourd  of  magic  growth," 


THE  GREAT  WEST  249 

this  "infant  Hercules,"  whose  slope  ascended  from  the 
crowded  river-front  beyond  the  city  to  a  beautiful  am 
phitheatre  of  encircling  hills,  had  already  the  appear 
ance  of  a  large,  industrious,  and  well-arranged  city,  in 
spite  of  the  down-hill  drainage,  the  hog-infested  alleys, 
the  streams  running  red  with  slaughter-house  blood, 
as  Mrs.  Trollope  described  the  realm  of  this  hoyden 
queen.  Geographical  position  and  business  relations 
with  North  and  South  made  Cincinnati  naturally  con 
servative  in  political  sentiments;  but  the  controlling 
spirit  was  Northern,  and  the  anchorage  in  a  free  State. 
Here  the  propensity  was  for  new  faces,  new  recruits  in 
the  hive  to  tread  the  honeycomb;  and  in  the  cease 
less  welcome  to  the  stranger  less  space  was  afforded  for 
knitting  the  ties  which  bound  tried  comrades  to 
gether. 

This  Western  boastfulness  and  push,  and  ready  hos 
pitality,  which  gave  to  our  expanding  Union  a  new  type 
of  character,  was  not  much  longer  to  effervesce  chiefly  in 
Cincinnati.  Another  star,  and  a  brighter,  beamed  on 
the  horizon  at  the  far-distant  lake  and  prairie  of  North 
eastern  Illinois.  But  Chicago  realized  as  yet  only  the 
forecast  of  a  great  destiny.  A  wooden  village,  crowded 
to  excess,  and  clustering  close  to  the  guns  of  Fort  Dear 
born,  whose  stars  and  stripes  were  emblems  of  the 
Great  Father  with  whom  the  Pottawatomies  had  come 
to  treat  for  their  removal  beyond  the  Mississippi;  the 
town  where  these  Indians  danced  the  war-dance  and 
ran  howling  through  the  streets,  humored  where  once 
they  terrified;  such  was  Chicago  as  late  as  1833.  But 
there  was  already  a  great  speculation  on  foot,  and  its 
white  inhabitants  were  convinced  that  here  was  the 
germ  of  an  immense  city.  Fairs  were  held,  horses 
traded  off,  new  steamboat-lines  projected, — in  fine, 


250         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Chicago  was  already  a  vast  sutler  shop  for  dispensing 
among  those  large  settled  tracts  and  townships  to  the 
south  and  west  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  and  other  supplies 
brought  through  the  great  lakes  from  Detroit.  St. 
Louis,  far  beyond  the  Mississippi,  completed  the  pres 
ent  group  of  Western  cities ;  anciently  settled,  French  in 
origin,  pro-slavery  by  adoption,  having  a  speckled  pop 
ulation  and  elements  adverse  to  a  generous  develop 
ment.  But  a  new  St.  Louis  had  already  sprung  up  near 
the  old  one,  and  fine  limestone  warehouses  fronted  the 
river.  In  this  emporium  of  trans-Mississippi  settle 
ments  and  world's  end  the  Northern  spirit  predomi 
nated,  and  for  ten  years  its  denizen  had  been  ready  to 
put  his  thumb  on  the  map  and  brag  that,  as  St.  Louis 
stood  at  the  centre  of  the  American  Union,  it  would 
some  day  be  the  capital  of  the  nation.  Illinois  was  in 
1831  the  swarming  State  for  free  settlers,  though  a 
thin  line  of  pioneers  had  advanced  up  the  Yellowstone 
and  Missouri  rivers,  two  thousand  miles  west  of  our 
Union  frontiers  as  bounded  when  Jefferson  was  chosen 
President,  and  already  the  Rocky  Mountains  seemed 
scarcely  more  remote  from  civilization  than  the  Alle- 
ghanies  had  been  a  century  before. 


Calhoun's   downfall   from    Presidential    favor   was 
pregnant  with  wToe  to  the  Union.     Through  the  adroit 
expedient   which   displaced   his    friends,    he   saw   the 
clenched  hand  which  was  silently  raised  to  destroy  him. 
These  four  years  of  alternate  hope  and  de 
spair  were  the  delirium  of  his  life;  and  the 
fever  of  ambition  now  coursing  wildly  in  his  veins  left 
him,  when  the  Presidential  prize  was  borne  beyond  his 
reach,  and  his  disappointment  complete,  a  lonely  and 


CALHOUN'S  DOWNFALL  251 

mischievous  man,  bloodless  as  a  spider.  Here  lies  the 
key  which  unlocks  Calhoun's  later  career,  and  reconciles 
the  whole  inconsistent  record  of  his  public  life;  once  a 
national  man  of  nationals,  but  henceforth  all  for  his 
State,  for  the  Southern  cause,  reckless  of  the  Union 
and  the  national  welfare. 

Singular  was  it  that  a  statesman  of  Calhoun's  capac 
ity  could  have  supposed  for  a  moment  that  States-right 
theories  more  unpopular  than  those  of  the  Hartford 
Convention  could  be  planked  into  a  Presidential  plat 
form;  but  he  was  a  man  of  theories,  who  held  young 
men  by  his  glittering  eye,  and  in  the  present  chase,  at 
least,  he  was  easily  infatuated.  Ignorant  as  a  child  of 
northern  sentiment  and  stability,  and  of  spirit  too  lofty 
to  win  support  by  the  little  arts  which  were  now  coming 
into  fashion,  he  seems  nevertheless  to  have  dreamed 
that  he  could  in  1832  consolidate  the  South  against  the 
centralizing  influences  of  the  last  eight  years,  bring 
over  Pennsylvania  and  the  West,  and  thus  win  the  elec 
tion.  Under  him  a  last  rally  would  be  made  for  pure 
government  against  a  vulgar  despotism.  But  northern 
men  of  cooler  judgment  who  were  lately  his  intimates 
foresaw  his  failure,  and  felt  that  his  star  had  sunk  for 
ever. 


The  tariff  subject,  into  which  local  and  sectional  in 
terests  are  pieced  like  the  coat  of  many  colors, 
seemed  destined  now  to  recur  with  each  Pres 
idential  contest,  always  to  agitate  but  never  to  be  set 
tled.     In  spite  of  all  that  has  been  confidently  said  or 
written  on  this  subject  during  a  century  of  the  Amer 
ican  Union,  it  cannot  be  said  that  our  people  have 
advanced  a  single  step  beyond  the  experimental  stage 


252         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  national  tariffs ;  and  this,  most  of  all,  for  the  reason 
that  opinion  is  swayed  by  business  interest,  while  busi 
ness  interests  interlace  over  the  vast  surface  of  our  con 
tinent,  not  only  changing,  but  coming  into  admitted 
rivalry.  Men  may  not  fathom  the  laws  of  trade,  but 
they  trade  upon  principles  of  which  they  are  tenacious ; 
and  to  those  principles,  and  the  individual  gain  which 
they  perceive  in  consequence,  whether  by  making  or 
saving  money,  they  are  likely  to  adhere.  Actual  ex 
periment,  it  is  true,  may  change  a  conviction  on  such 
points,  but  theory  never.  Here,  among  a  varied  and 
vigorous  race  of  toilers  crowding  upon  one  another, 
eager  to  amass,  and  living  under  a  complex  but  elastic 
system  of  laws  which  they  themselves  may  influence,  it 
is  certain  that  the  most  intricate  problems  of  political 
economy  will  in  time  be  worked  out ;  not,  however,  upon 
the  lines  of  European  experience,  nor  without  much 
waste  and  wandering.  Agriculture,  manufactures,  and 
commerce  are  all  of  national  concern,  and  each  must  be 
considered;  none  should  be  greedy  to  the  detriment  of 
the  rest. 

Upon  this  delicate  question  the  Jackson  administra 
tion  hardly  showed  its  hand.  The  tariff  act  of  1828, 
against  which  the  Southern  planters  had  inveighed  so 
bitterly,  was  still  unchanged.  Neither  manufacturing 
nor  agricultural  States  regarded  it  as  a  finality ;  and  the 
increasing  prosperity  of  American  commerce,  which 
bore  with  it  an  increased  revenue,  produced  a  state  of 
things,  now  that  the  public  debt  was  approaching  ex 
tinction,  where  tariff  modification  of  some  sort  would 
be  not  only  judicious  but  indispensable. 

As  between  these  long-clashing  principles,  that  of 
free  trade  may  be  pronounced  the  ideal  one.  It  accords 
with  nature;  it  respects  the  rights  of  man  as  a  free 


A  NEW  CAMPAIGN  253 

dweller  upon  God's  earth ;  it  fulfils  that  primary  condi 
tion  of  trade  that  commodity  shall  be  exchanged  at 
choice  for  commodity,  without  hindrance  or  a  subsidy 
to  any  man.  But  the  world's  trade  is  regulated,  not 
by  theory,  but  by  existing  facts;  and  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  free  trade  with  other  nations  unless  other  na 
tions  concede  it.  For  the  United  States  protection  or 
favor  to  American  industries  meant  at  this  time  a  final 
release  from  the  bondage  of  the  British  colonial 
policy. 


National  bank,  internal  improvements,  reform  in 
the  civil  service,  a  just  and  orderly  administration — 
such  was  the  platform  of  principles  over 
which  Clay's  followers  unfurled  for  the  last 
time  the  banner  of  "National  Republicans."  All  the 
fragments  of  that  once  formidable  party  had  by  1831 
rallied  under  him  as  the  only  man  who  could  possibly 
lead  it  again  to  victory.  While  these  opposition  ele 
ments  had  little  cohesion,  Jackson  ruled  his  own  fol 
lowers  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Many  still  called  this  party 
by  the  old  familiar  name  of  "the  Jackson"  or  "the  Jack 
son  Republican"  party,  but  the  word  "Democratic," 
once  affixed  for  reproach,  and  deprecated,  this  section 
of  the  old  Jefferson  Republican  fold  into  which  Monroe 
had  absorbed  all  parties,  fearlessly  accepted  in  1832. 
Jackson,  then,  and  not  Jefferson,  was  the  first  avowed 
leader  of  the  American  Democracy ;  and  the  national 
party  that  now  gathered  to  conquer  under  Jackson  by 
the  noble  name  of  Democrat,  though  ruled  by  southern 
ideas,  has  never  been  dissolved  nor  failed  of  a  standard- 
bearer.  Of  this,  his  own  party,  Jackson  was  now  by 
common  consent  the  candidate  for  re-election  as  Pres- 


254         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ident ;  and  following  the  second-term  movement,  begun 
in  his  favor  by  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  in  1830, 
Illinois,  Alabama,  and  most  other  States  in  turn  nom 
inated  him,  either  by  the  legislature  or  in  popular  con 
vention.  The  only  need  at  all  for  a  national  gathering 
of  his  party  at  this  time  was  to  nominate  a  Vice-Pres 
ident  as  the  associate  of  his  ticket. 

Long,  then,  before  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  and 
while  the  fate  of  the  Bank  recharter  and  tariff  remained 
in  suspense,  the  two  national  parties  had  selected  their 
nominees.  The  flag  of  the  Jackson  party  or  '  'Demo 
crats"  bore  the  names  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren ;  that 
of  the  "National  Republicans"  emblazoned  Clay  and 
Sergeant.  The  Democracy  or  Jackson  Republicans 
(for  many  of  this  party  still  adhered  to  the  name  of 
"Republican,"  which  Jefferson  had  made  historical) 
gloried  in  the  foreign  and  domestic  policy  of  their  chief, 
the  near  extinction  of  the  debt,  the  correction  of 
centralizing  tendencies,  and  above  all,  in  Jackson's 
personal  popularity.  The  "National  Republicans," 
comprising  chiefly  the  Adams  men  of  1828,  promised 
to  turn  back  the  rising  flood  of  misrule,  and  administer 
affairs  in  a  broad  and  generous  spirit  worthy  a  na 
tion  of  such  exalted  destiny.  But  a  third  party  now 
stood  across  the  opposition  path,  to  the  dismay  of  Clay's 
lax  following ;  one,  in  fact,  of  those  rare  but  recurring 
phenomena  in  our  politics,  which,  like  a  comet  spacing 
the  sky,  betokens  some  mighty  convulsion,  and  then  dis 
appears  to  falsify  and  be  forgotten.  This  was  the 
Anti-Mason  party,  which  by  1832  had  gathered  bold 
ness  enough  to  throw  its  whole  force  into  the  national 
encounter,  there  to  perish  ignobly.  Its  cradle  was  in 
western  New  York,  and  its  first  object  of  existence 


NULLIFICATION  255 

that  of  bringing  the  supposed  assassins  of  William 
Morgan  to  justice. 


When  Jackson's  force-bill  message  was  read  in  the 
Senate,  Calhoun,  now  a  Senator,  earnestly  repelled  the 
imputation  that  South  Carolina  intended  any 
thing  more  by  enrolling  State  troops  than  to 
defend  her  rights  by  legal  process,  unless  the  general 
government  should  employ  troops  against  her.  And 
by  the  time  Wilkins,  from  the  judiciary  committee,  re 
ported  a  bill  which  clothed  the  Executive  with  the  addi 
tional  powers  asked  for,  the  new  Senator  diverted 
immediate  action  from  the  subject  by  bringing  forward 
a  set  of  resolutions  on  the  federal  constitution.  Here 
upon  he  began  dogmatizing  upon  the  abstract  right  of 
nullification  and  secession,  as  though  to  put  the  whole 
revolution  into  chancery.  Counter-resolutions  were 
offered  by  Grundy  and  Clayton,  by  way  of  cross-bill, 
and  the  Senate  plunged  into  a  discussion  as  fruitless 
as  it  was  bewildering,  concerning  the  nature  and  ele 
ments  of  the  composite  government  we  lived  under. 
Out  of  this  fog-bank  of  a  priori  reasoning  emerged  two 
chief  theories  and  two  chief  disputants :  the  disputants 
Calhoun  and  Webster;  the  theories  that  on  the  one 
hand  the  constitution  was  a  league  or  compact,  and 
acted  upon  States,  that  on  the  other  hand  it  was  no 
league,  no  compact,  but  acted  upon  individuals.  Cal 
houn,  whose  native  genius  and  desultory  training  made 
of  him  a  political  philosopher  and  empiric  more  than  a 
practical  lawyer,  had  grown  to  look  upon  our  federal 
constitution  more  from  the  Roman  than  the  English 
standpoint;  and  to  the  early  Roman  law,  with  its  trib- 


256         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

une  power,  and  that  historical  secession  of  the  dissatis 
fied,  he  now  appealed  to  justify  the  resistance  of  a 
weaker  section  against  the  stronger.  The  illustration 
was  not  a  happy  one,  for  not  only  had  Roman  institu 
tions  no  clear  counterpart  to  our  own,  but  Roman  seces 
sion  and  the  creation  of  the  tribune's  veto  were  against 
patrician  rule  and  in  the  interest  of  individual  rights : 
that  cause  which  creeps  on  over  every  republican 
system  as  resistlessly  as  the  incoming  wave  of  the 
ocean. 

Webster,  on  the  other  hand,  foremost  among  legal 
practitioners,  whose  whole  mould  was  English,  rested 
more  justly  upon  those  maxims  and  manners  of  the 
common  law  which,  most  of  all,  inspired  our  political 
system.  From  Saxon  loins  could  have  sprung  only  a 
Saxon  constitution;  and  Napoleon's  cession  of  Louisi 
ana,  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  marks  the  first  in 
fusion  of  blood  from  Southern  Europe  into  the  veins  of 
our  body  politic.  But  Webster,  as  a  disciple  of  the  old 
Federalist  school  whose  demigod  was  Hamilton,  took  no 
pains  to  discriminate  those  composite  elements  of  State 
and  national  influence  which  our  ancestors  had  blended 
with  such  skill  and  nicety,  but  argued  the  case  rather  on 
the  theory  that  the  collective  American  people  had  or 
dained  that  to  which  a  separate  confederate  assent  gave 
the  sanction,  and  as  though  by  the  sorcery  of  that  sanc 
tion  State  sovereignty  melted  down  to  solidify  into  a 
nation.  This  conclusion  he  reached,  moreover,  by  the 
unprofessional  course  of  interpreting  a  written  instru 
ment  by  particular  phrases,  by  a  preamble  instead  of  its 
general  tenor.  A  statesman  who  believed  in  nullifica 
tion  as  little  as  himself  detected  the  flaw  in  the  argu 
ment.  To  Webster's  plea  that  the  Union  was  a  gov 
ernment  of  the  people  and  not  a  compact  of  States, 


SOUTH  CAROLINA  IN   1833         257 

John  Quincy  Adams  noted  his  dissent :  "it  is  both,  and 
all  constitutional  government  is  a  compact." 

In  fact,  the  triumph  or  half-triumph  of  the  principles 
of  disloyalty  and  dissolution  was  more  portentous  of 
evil  to  this  Union  than  tariffs,  high  or  low.  Better  had 
it  been,  in  view  of  later  events,  to  meet  the  nullifiers 
then  and  there  upon  their  own  issue,  and  break  the  stub 
born  pride  of  South  Carolina,  than  permit  these  her 
esies  to  be  sown  broadcast.  Never  could  the  country 
have  been  more  favorably  situated  in  strength  and  re 
sources  for  such  a  conflict.  With  all  the  sympathy 
natural  among  Southern  planters,  not  one  Southern 
State  was  likely  to  join  South  Carolina  in  the  pre 
tentious  right  to  nullify  and  secede.  The  President, 
himself  a  Southerner,  but  at  every  fibre  a  Union  man, 
might  have  been  trusted  in  the  emergency  to  uphold 
the  majesty  of  the  laws  and  the  rights  of  the  people. 
His  very  name  as  a  soldier  struck  terror  to  enemies, 
and  made  the  boldest  conspirator  falter.  That  South 
Carolina  would  have  yielded  without  bloodshed  is  most 
likely;  that,  madly  contending,  her  coercion  and  abase 
ment  would  have  followed  is  certain.  The  sword  of 
civil  war  is  always  terrible  to  draw;  yet  the  worst 
slaughter  in  1833  would  have  been  light  in  comparison 
with  that  which  followed  the  second  provocation  of  this 
State  less  than  thirty  years  later.  But  the  forbearance 
of  the  stronger  part  of  the  Union  equalled  in  these  days 
the  impatient  disdain  of  the  weaker;  and  temporizing 
remedies  for  relief,  that  mischief  of  all  representative 
governments,  drove  the  disease  deeper  into  our  system 
instead  of  eradicating  it. 


As  for  Calhoun,  distrusted  henceforth  as  a  conspir- 


258         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ator  by  a  large  fraction  of  his  former  party  and  by 
the  general  mass  of  the  people,  his  capacious  intellect 
and  energy  from  henceforth  belonged  unreservedly  to 
the  pernicious  cause  of  which  he  was  now  by  far  the 
ablest  exponent,  and  to  the  spirited  State  which  main 
tained  him  steadily  in  public  life.  With  scarcely  a 
break  in  his  new  career,  he  sat  in  the  Senate  as  one  of  its 
three  greatest  men,  austere  and  isolated,  devoted  to 
Southern  rights,  and  the  unapproachable  champion  of 
doctrines  which  shook  the  Union  to  its  centre.  A  kind 
master  to  his  own  slaves,  he  forged  a  chain,  link  by 
link,  which  should  draw  the  whole  country  into  the  toils 
of  slavery  or  break  and  leave  slaveholders  to  form  a 
new  and  stronger  confederacy  of  their  own.  Into  the 
mysteries  of  this  metamorphosis  he  retired  like  a  con 
jurer  who  retreats  into  clock-work.  Chaste  as  snow, 
and  in  his  private  morals  stronger  than  Clay  or  Webster, 
he  was  not  less  corroded  than  they  by  ambition.  While 
he  sat  in  his  chair  in  the  Senate,  rarely  conversing,  un 
known  personally  by  many  of  those  who  saw  him  daily, 
strangers  studied  his  remarkable  face  and  figure.  Miss 
Martineau  wrote  of  him  as  a  cast-iron  man,  and  others 
who  saw  him  have  used  similar  expressions;  for  he 
seemed  to  harden  into  a  creature  of  intellectual  solitude, 
who  opened  his  mouth,  whether  in  the  Senate  or  at  his 
fireside,  only  to  impress  others  with  his  political  mis 
conceptions  while  imbibing  not  the  slightest  impression 
in  return.  His  intellect,  which  was  one  of  the  greatest 
this  country  has  produced,  narrowed  its  range  for  the 
sake  of  effect.  Embodying  thus  a  few  startling  ab 
stractions,  he  became,  by  the  force  of  his  striking  and 
singular  personal  character  and  the  habit  of  constant 
reiteration  in  speech  and  of  probing  profoundly  as  into 
a  well,  the  sage,  philosopher,  and  dogmatist  of  the  slave- 


CALHOUN  IN  SENATE  259 

holding  section,  a  most  fascinating  political  teacher  of 
the  Southern  youth,  and  withal  a  dangerous  one.  His 
reserved  rights  of  States,  as  he  worked  out  the  theory, 
served  for  those  who  were  in  danger  of  being  outnum 
bered.  Well-bred,  unpretentious,  and  full  of  that  sim 
ple  courtesy  which  captivates  the  young,  and  having, 
moreover,  an  unblemished  integrity,  and  the  nicest 
sense  of  personal  honor  in  pecuniary  affairs,  the  in 
fluence  Calhoun  exerted  in  this  later  episode  of  his  long 
career  was  immeasurably  increased  by  the  almost  utter 
absence  of  public  responsibility.  Holding  aloof  from 
political  parties  as  though  he  despised  their  modes,  and 
keeping  his  State  equally  disdainful  of  the  national  pat 
ronage,  he  was  in  a  fit  position  to  take  always  the  re 
form  side  of  administrative  questions  and  to  denounce 
debauchery  in  the  civil  service.  His  bitterness  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  was  to  thirst  for  the  chief  office,  while 
the  tantalizing  wave  approached  and  receded  constantly, 
but  never  touched  his  lips. 

In  the  present  escape  from  the  meshes  of  tariff  resist 
ance  and  premature  rebellion,  Calhoun  suffered  from 
Clay's  friends  some  personal  humiliations  which  ran 
kled  in  his  later  allusions  to  the  subject;  but  he  schooled 
himself  to  think  and  speak  with  composure  on  all  sub 
jects,  and  never  again  to  appear  as  an  apologist.  He 
had  always  been  a  man  of  cool  self-confidence  and  au 
dacity.  His  logical  process  and  style  of  oratory  were 
his  own,  and  as  unlike  the  eloquence  of  his  great  rivals 
as  possible.  He  addressed  his  associates  simply  as 
"Senators,"  after  the  Roman  fashion;  his  speech  was 
direct,  and  rarely  adorned  with  metaphor  or  anecdote, 
and,  though  trenchant,  he  rarely  failed  in  courtesy. 
His  long,  coarse  hair,  which  stood  out  straight  from  the 
skull  for  an  inch  and  then  fell  over  on  either  side  of  the 


260         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

head,  grew  more  gray  from  year  to  year,  the  lines  of 
his  face  more  deeply  marked,  his  luminous  eyes  more 
sunken,  his  thin  lips  more  compressed,  his  cheeks  more 
hollow,  the  lines  of  his  face  drawn  out  longer.  The 
whole  aspect  of  the  great  Carolinian  betrayed  the  fires 
of  disappointed  ambition  which  he  was  resolutely 
quenching ;  but  the  mischief  he  plotted  against  the  free 
States,  and  the  integrity  of  that  broad  Union  from 
whose  confidence  he  could  expect  no  more,  remained  his 
heart's  close  secret. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SECOND    ADMINISTRATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-third  Congress.  March  4,  i833-March  3, 
1835.— §  II.  Period  of  Twenty-fourth  Congress.  March  4, 
i835-March  3,  183?- 

ANDREW  JACKSON,  when  his  second  admin 
istration  began,  was  distant  less  than  a  fort 
night    from    his    sixty-sixth    birthday.      Of 
earlier  Presidents  chosen  for  two  terms,  both  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson  had  retired  from  office 
when  somewhat  younger ;  Madison  at  an  age     Marcii  4. 
equalling  almost  literally  Jackson's  present 
weight  of  years;  Monroe  when  somewhat  older,  yet 
before  he  was  sixty-seven.  Jackson's  health  was  already 
precarious ;  there  had  been  days  when  he  was  so  feeble 
that  it  seemed  impossible  he  could  outlive  his  first  term ; 
he  fought  infirmities  constantly,  and,  a  childless  yet  do 
mestic  man,  he  mourned  tenderly  the  spouse  whose 
fresh  grave    he  had  left  behind  him  at  the  Hermitage 
to  go  where  fame  awaited  him. 

What  prompted,  then,  those  plump  majorities  which 
bore  this  old  man  a  second  time  into  the  civil  chair, 
stronger  in  the  popular  support  than  before?  Grati 
tude,  chiefly,  for  his  heroic  service  in  the  field,  and  that 
idolatry  which  military  heroes  command  under  every 
system  of  government.  Heartier,  too,  was  the  recogni 
tion,  because  it  had  worked  out  slowly,  and  as  though 
stifled  by  earlier  misgiving.  And  what  did  the  people 


262         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

expect  from  his  second  administration  ?  A  policy 
servative  on  the  whole,  as  before,  which  frowned  upon 
monopolies  ana  guarded  the  humSle  toiler.  Our  country 
was  now  prosperous,  at  peace  with  the  world,  free  from 
the  hard  pressure  of  debt.  Mere  errors  and  foibles 
might  be  overlooked  in  a  magistrate  so  popular;  and 
supposing  his  grasp  should  relax,  the  smooth  current 
would  take  us  safely  along.  While  that  one  dark  cloud, 
nullification,  mottled  the  landscape  in  the  midst  of  the 
canvass,  the  people  drew  still  closer  to  their  veteran 
warrior  by  a  common  instinct,  and  their  confidence  was 
not  misplaced.  Clay  might  be  called  "the  great  pacif 
icator,"  but  that  prouder  title,  "preserver  of  the  Union," 
belonged  to  our  military  chieftain. 

Decked  with  this  new  honor,  and  triumphant,  as  it 
then  seemed,  over  the  hydra  whose  head  was  cut  off, 
Jackson  entered  upon  a  second  term,  old  as  he  was, 
when  at  the  zenith  of  his  national  renown  and  popu 
larity.  The  clouds  once  threatening  had  dispersed,  and 
all  was  bright  sunshine  again.  Had  our  hero  laid 
down  office  at  this  moment  instead  of  taking  the  oath 
anew,  his  fame  must  have  been  irresistible,  for  thus  far 
his  course  had  on  the  whole  been  wise  as  well  as  bril 
liant  ;  Jie  had  shown  great  sagacity,  and,  being  uncor- 
rupt  personally,- all  the  odium  of  his  patronage  and 
mischievous  appointments  would  have  rested  on  the 
shoulders  of  his  civil  advisers  and  parasites;  so  un 
willing  are  the  people  to  believe  any  ill  of  their  hero. 
Except  for  the  spoils  business  and  a  few  private  quar 
rels,  he  had  well  maintained  the  national  dignity. 
Even  now,  as  Andrew  Jackson  came  quietly  into  the 
Representatives'  hall  on  the  4th  of  March  to  take  the 
customary  oath  for  a  second  term,  attended  by  Van 
Buren,  the  Vice-President-elect,  and  a  private  secretary, 


JACKSON'S  ZENITH  263 

and  announced  to  the  assembled  dignitaries  only  by  the 
applause  of  spectators  which  greeted  his  entrance,  his 
modest  but  distinguished  mien  prepossessed  all  hearts 
in  his  favor.  Both  Houses  of  Congress  received  him 
with  every  token  of  respect.  Among  foreign  ministers 
resplendent  in  gold  lace,  and  officers  in  their  uniforms, 
he  stood  contrasted  in  plain  black  suit  without  a  single 
decoration;  an  elderly  man,  tall,  spare,  and  bony,  and 
by  no  means  robust  in  aspect.  His  dark-blue  eyes 
peered  out  searchingly  from  beneath  heavy  eyebrows 
and  a  wrinkled  forehead  high  but  narrow ;  his  firm-set 
mouth  and  chin  worked  almost  convulsively  with  the 
play  of  his  emotions,  and  his  general  features  conveyed 
the  impression  of  a  quick  and  nervous  energy  as  well 
as  great  decision  of  character.  His  thick  hair,  bristling 
stiffly  up  in  front,  was  by  this  time  perfectly  white,  and 
being  brushed  upward  and  back  from  the  brow,  gave  to 
his  long  and  beardless  face  a  delicate  look,  almost  wom 
anly  in  repose,  which  could  not  be  forgotten.  He 
dressed  in  the  plain  civilian  suit  of  the  period,  with 
watch-seal  dangling  from  the  fob,  a  shirt  slightly  ruf 
fled,  and  starched  collar-points  standing  sentinel  over 
the  chin,  which  rose  resolute  from  the  constraint  of  a 
stiff  black  stock. 

In  these  later  years  Jackson  often  wore  a  pair  of 
solemn  spectacles  which  gave  to  his  visage  a  more  sage 
and  penetrating  look  than  ever;  and  when  walking  he 
would  mount  a  light  beaver  hat,  on  which  was  bound 
his  widower's  weed,  and  carry  a  goodly  cane  adorned 
with  a  silk  tassel,  which  he  would  flourish  when  animat 
ed  like  a  sword  to  emphasize  his  thoughts.  That  game 
cock  look,  as  some  well  styled  it,  which  was  Jackson's 
characteristic  expression,  was  softened  by  the  lines  of 
advancing  age.  No  stranger  encountered  his  hospitality 


264         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

without  mingling  some  tenderness  with  his  admiration 
of  the  man.  By  dependents,  by  the  young,  by  all  fa 
miliars  whose  purpose  coincided  with  his  own  instead 
of  crossing  it,  Jackson  was  idolized.  To  men  of  cooler 
judgment  he  recalled  the  knight  of  La  Mancha,  though 
only  so  far  as  they  thought  to  caricature  the  fiery  zeal 
with  which  one  may  charge  at  a  debatable  wrong  which 

}  stands  in  his  path  rather  than  go  round;  for  Jackson, 
if  a  knight-errant  at  all  in  disputation,  dealt  at  least 

j  with  the  realities  of  life  and  that  in  a  method  most 
effectual.  His  chivalry,  too,  towards  the  fair  sex  was 
chaste  and  worthy  of  a  knight-errant  of  old.  He  im 
pressed  as  one  intense  in  his  convictions  rather  than 
broad;  passionate  and  irascible,  liable  to  error  and  prej 
udice,  vindictive  even,  but  most  courteous  to  meet  on 
his  own  ground,  and  in  the  main  true  to  himself,  or 
rather  to  his  personality  for  the  time  being,  for  a 
character  so  impetuous  is  apt  to  shift  its  logic  with  its 
environs.  Andrew  Jackson  was  neither  so  ignorant 
nor  so  ill-bred  as  rumor  and  the  rancor  of  his  enemies 
would  have  made  out.  He  had  a  frank  and  manly 
bearing,  as  one  who  felt  himself  a  distinguished  per 
sonage  in  any  society,  and  strangers  from  abroad  who 
met  him  for  the  first  time,  prejudiced  by  all  they  had 
heard,  were  impressed  by  the  courtesy  of  his  bearing 
as  well  as  his  keen  sagacity.  On  all  public  occasions 
his  demeanor  was  admirable,  showing  the  perfect  dem 
ocrat  and  man  of  the  people,  at  ease  with  the  world. 
He  shook  hands  with  all,  conversed  pleasantly,  and  ap 
peared  neither  distant  nor  undignified.  He  spoke  his 
mind  on  all  subjects  without  affectation,  and  though 
the  texture  of  expression  might  be  rude,  there  was  a 
body  of  thought  beneath. 

A  conscious  pride  now  swelled  the  President's  breast, 


JACKSON'S  TOUR  265 

that  of  holding  the  rank  of  the  first  citizen  in  America, 
the  twice-trusted  leader  of  the  people,  the  vindicator, 
besides,  of  the  federal  Union  and  national  supremacy. 
This  consciousness  deepened  his  purpose  to  administer 
affairs  rightly;  but  unhappily  for  the  country,  as  the 
sequel  will  show,  success  and  adulation  turned  his  head, 
made  him  more  arbitrary  and  unmanageable  than  be 
fore,  less  disposed  to  heed  the  promptings  of  public 
opinion,  or  even  of  his  own  party  followers.  It  is  his 
second  term  upon  which  historical  censure  most  safely 
fastens.  He  himself  had  looked  upon  his  re-election 
canvass  as  a  submission  of  his  whole  executive  policy ; 
but  that  verdict  once  given  in  his  favor,  he  treated  it  as 
an  approval  at  all  points  of  whatever  he  had  done  or 
might  do,  and  launched  out  boldly  on  his  new  career 
as  autocrat  of  the  democracy  or  tribune  of  the  people, 
defying  the  co-ordinate  departments  of  government  as 
no  other  President  has  safely  dared. 


Familiarity  and  the  bitterness  of  faction  lowered  the 
tone  of  Jackson's  public  tour  of  1833  as  compared  with 
former  ones  of  the  kind.  The  progress  of  Washing 
ton,  Monroe,  and  Lafayette  had  elicited  a  venerating 
applause  which  cemented  the  pride  and  loyal  feeling 
of  American  citizenship,  and  society  all  along  the  route 
put  forward  its  natural  leaders  to  extend  the  greeting 
which  all  were  zealous  to  express.  But  here  the  note 
of  hospitality  was  pitched,  as  it  were,  from  the 
kitchen  and  back-alley,  and  arrangements  fell  largely 
into  the  hands  of  petty  dignitaries,  many  of  them  rabid 
partisans,  about  whom  swarmed  the  mosquito  breed  of 
spoil-seekers  r.nd  buzzing  insignificants,  each  striving 
to  cut  a  figure  on  this  occasion  with  politic  ends  in  view. 


266         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

A  thundering  aggregate  was  the  best  part  of  the  demon 
stration.  Statesmen  of  the  opposite  party  retreated 
into  the  background.  Distinguished  scholars  and  cit 
izens  came  forward,  it  is  true,  in  some  places,  to  swell 
the  meed  of  applause,  but  it  was  chiefly  to  show  respect 
for  the  office,  if  not  the  officer.  The  honorary  degree 
he  received  from  the  chief  and  oldest  seat  of  learning 
in  the  land  was  generally  looked  upon  by  scholars  as  a 
piece  of  ridiculous  flattery  to  a  man  who  was  neither  a 
scholar  nor  the  patron  of  scholars.  The  blue  bloods  of 
Boston  peeped  from  behind  the  curtains  as  his  carriage 
went  by  under  military  escort.  Various  mischances 
occurred  on  his  travels  which  enemies  turned  to  ridi 
cule.  While  the  President  was  on  his  pious  pilgrimage 
down  the  Potomac,  a  lieutenant  of  the  navy  whose 
name  had  been  struck  from  the  rolls  came  on  board  the 
steamboat  at  Alexandria  and  assaulted  him,  escaping 
the  general's  uplifted  cane  after  slapping  his  face.  At 
the  New  York  Battery  a  crowded  bridge  broke  down 
just  as  the  President's  horse  had  passed  over  it,  pre 
cipitating  a  dense  mass  of  sycophants  and  spectators 
into  the  soft  mud  left  by  a  receding  tide,  with  just 
enough  damage  to  make  the  scene  laughable  to  those 
who  read  of  it.  Other  mishaps  were  related  at  the  ex 
pense  of  members  of  his  suite  who  were  less  bold  than 
he  in  the  saddle.  Incidents  like  these  gave  a  gro 
tesque  side  to  the  tour,together  with  the  mill-wheel  roar 
of  the  populace,  the  hand-shakings,  the  Boston  dys 
entery,  the  ceremonious  reception  at  Cambridge,  where 
an  imaginary  Latin  response  electrified  the  President's 
classical  audience,  which  rounded  off  in  those  stirring 
and  patriotic  phrases,  "E  pluribus  unum;  sine  qua 
non!"  For  there  was  felt  a  delicious  absurdity  in  cast 
ing  these  academic  pearls  before  the  illiterate  great,  and 


JACKSON'S  TOUR  267 

trying  to  keep  up  the  academic  conceit  in  doing  so.  In 
fact,  the  jocose  reporter  was  now  abroad  for  the  first 
time,  and  there  cropped  out  in  the  course  of  Jackson's 
tour  a  Colonel  Jack  Downing,  whose  letters  pictured 
him  travelling  in  the  President's  suite  as  intimate  ad 
viser  and  occasional  proxy  for  pump-handle  intercourse 
with  the  people.  Jack  Downing  was  the  first  of  our 
newspaper  humorists  to  sport  with  ephemeral  events, 
the  forerunner  of  Doesticks,  Artemus  Ward,  Nasby, 
and  other  spurious  personages  of  a  school  now  familiar 
enough,  whose  mission  is  to  lampoon  the  great.  But 
neither  the  virulence  of  our  better  remnant  nor  the  buf 
foonery  of  the  conservative  press  could  cool  the  honest 
enthusiasm  of  the  common  people.  Jackson  appeared 
now  in  the  full  blaze  of  a  warrior's  glory.  He  had 
conquered  nullification,  or  at  least  had  conquered  it  so 
far  as  the  national  spirit  of  fraternity  in  those  days  per 
mitted;  for  we  came,  we  saw,  we  compromised.  A 
little  incident  connected  with  his  entry  into  Boston 
touched  the  chord  which  was  deepest  in  the  man  and 
his  admirers.  At  the  city  line  the  orator  who  greeted 
him  at  the  triumphal  arch  gave  this  brief  but  hearty 
doggerel  of  his  own  composition : 

"And  may  his  powerful  arm  long  remain  nerved 
Who  said,  'The  Union,  it  must  be  preserved !'  " 

"Sir,"  was  the  laconic  reply  of  the  President,  in  a 
voice  equally  fervent,  "it  shall  be  preserved  as  long  as 
there  is  a  nerve  in  this  arm !" 


Commerce  grew  impatient;  the  new  and  invaluable 
trade  of  the  interior  increased  its  demands  with  its  de- 


268         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

velopment.  Old  people  and  slow  have  recalled  with  a 
sigh  those  peaceful  days  when  a  family  party  might 
charter  the  entire  cabin  of  an  Erie  canal  boat,  and  glide 
at  leisure  on  the  safest  voyage  of  its  length  ever  pro 
jected  by  civilized  man,  eating  and  sleeping  on  board, 
and  varying  the  monotony  by  striding  the  tow-path  in 
advance  of  the  horses,  and  sitting  at  the  next  lock  to  see 
the  boat  come  up  and  take  its  new  level.  The  dust  and 
jolting  of  the  stage  were  avoided,  though  the  journey 
should  consume  more  time.  But  the  anxious  business 
man  who  made  one  of  twenty-five  passengers  whose 
majority,  excluded  from  the  red-curtained  sanctuary 
of  the  fair  sex,  were  compelled  to  eat,  dress,  and  sleep 
in  an  outer  saloon,  gave  a  less  pleasing  picture  of  life  by 
such  conveyance.  One  wearied  of  being  drawn  inces 
santly  through  tame  meadow  scenery  by  horses  whose 
jog-trot  at  the  end  of  a  long  rope  was  sobriety  itself;  of 
delays  at  the  locks ;  of  low  bridges  which  passengers  on 
the  deck  had  to  shun  by  lying  flat  at  the  steersman's 
call ;  of  the  berths  which  were  swung  at  night  in  tiers 
like  hanging  book-shelves,  for  which  passengers  drew 
lots.  Had  canal  boats  continued  much  longer  in  fash 
ion  they  would  have  been  propelled  by  steam. 


Hail  to  the  glorious  era  which  is  now  ushered  in,  of 
iron  track  and  steam-locomotive,  miraculous  factors  in 
accomplishing  the  social  and  inland  changes 
of  the  nineteenth  century.     The  world's  rail 
way  system  was  inaugurated  in  1830,  when,  in  Great 
Britain,  after  stubborn  obstacle  and  delay,  the  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  road,  commenced  in  1826,  was  for 
mally  opened  for  traffic  in  freight  and  passengers,  pro 
vided  with  George  Stephenson's  improved  locomotives, 


THE  RAILWAY  ERA  269 

which  were  found  capable  of  travelling  at  the  speed, 
astounding  for  those  days,  of  thirty  miles  an  hour. 
The  success  of  this  enterprise  was  immediate  and  com 
plete,  and  impelled  capital  to  create  similar  lines,  not  in 
Great  Britain  alone  but  in  every  civilized  nation  on  the 
globe's  surface.  As  happens  with  most  great  appli 
ances  to  the  wants  of  mankind,  some  elements  of  the 
invention  far  antedated  its  full  adaptation  to  general 
purposes,  and  the  man  of  bold  and  successful  experi 
ment  trod  on  the  bones  of  unhonored  prophets  and  luck 
less  projectors. 

Our  modern  railway  involves  two  consummate  prac 
tical  gains  in  transportation  by  land, — a  gain  by  dimin 
ishing  friction,  and  a  gain  by  applying  a  new  motive 
power.  For  the  latter  and  more  astonishing  invention 
the  world  owes  its  gratitude  to  George  Stephenson,  the 
English  engineer,  whose  rise  in  life  from  an  humble 
firemen  in  the  colleries  endears  his  example  to  the  pop 
ular  heart  of  all  countries  and  times.  He  was  a  self- 
taught  man  of  science,  and  to  perfect  his  locomotive 
applied  his  patient  energy  some  twenty  years.  Yet 
Stephenson  had  the  stimulus  of  Fulton's  steamboat; 
nor  must  Trevethick's  rude  contrivance  of  1804  be  for 
gotten  which  drew  ten  tons  of  bar  iron  at  five  miles  an 
hour,  nor  Watt's  still  earlier  patent  of  1784,  nor  earliest 
of  all,  our  own  Evans,  whose  predictions  of  the  triumph 
of  steam  locomotion  had  sunk  deeply  into  the  American 
mind.  As  for  the  gain  by  diminishing  friction  literally 
imported  by  the  word  "railway,"  that  invention  in  the 
mother  country  dates  back  at  least  to  1672,  when  coal 
in  Northumberland  and  Durham  was  hauled  by  a  horse 
from  the  mine  to  the  river  upon  a  wooden  tramway 
furnished  with  flanges  to  keep  the  wheels  from  slip 
ping. 


270         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Our  modern  railway,  then,  was  a  most  precious  prod 
uct  of  mineral  industry ;  and  in  the  gloom  and  grime  of 
a  coal-pit  a  British  mechanic  was  working  out  the  next 
material  wonder  of  the  age,  while  Wellington  fought 
the  last  great  battle  of  the  world  where  this  means  of 
locomotion  could  be  ignored.  Nor  to  trace  out  the 
experimental  steps  by  which,  in  the  course  of  a  century 
or  more,  cast-iron  and  steel  rails  come  to  take  the  place 
of  wooden  beams,  a  wagon-train  the  single  large 
wagon,  while  the  flanges  to  prevent  slipping  are  put 
upon  the  wheels  instead  of  the  track ;  we  find  already  in 
the  tracked  road  alone,  aside  from  steam  motive  power, 
a  rival  of  the  canal  sufficiently  formidable. 


John  Quincy  Adams's  speech  on  this  occasion*  had 
been  a  trumpet  call.  As  a  speaker,  he  had  not  the  grace 
of  a  melodious  voice  or  an  engaging  manner.  There 
was  something  rasping  and  jarring  in  his  delivery;  and 
when  the  old  man  undertook  to  make  himself 
heard,  as  he  sometimes  did,  above  the  din  and 
confusion  he  helped  most  to  create,  his  voice,  though 
apt  to  break,  would  pierce  the  remotest  corner  of  this 
ill-constructed  chamber  like  the  high  notes  of  a  fife.  If 
his  manner  in  speaking  was  harsh  and  unsympathetic, 
his  matter  when  in  debate  was  still  more  so.  He  in 
dulged  in  the  bitterest  personalities,  sarcasm,  and  cut 
ting  invective,  exposed  motives  and  imputed  usually  the 
most  unfavorable,  as  his  memoirs  show,  and  in  his 
whole  course  of  action  appeared  very  lightly  bound  to 
the  current  opinion  of  his  time.  He  conciliated  neither 
parties  nor  party  idols.  But  in  his  courageous  inde- 

*March  2,  1835,  when  our  French  relations  were  strained. 


ADAMS  IN  THE  HOUSE  271 

pendence  and  fixedness  of  purpose  lay  the  secret  of  his 
latest  influence,  which  widened  rapidly  now  that  the  ri 
valry  of  personal  ambition  was  eliminated;  for  there 
was  a  sort  of  stubborn  integrity  about  him,  a  passionate 
patriotism.  His  keen  insight,  too,  and  profound  con 
ception  of  coming  dangers,  made  his  guidance  more 
powerful  with  his  fellow-citizens  than  they  were  aware. 
Athletic  in  his  studies,  he  dived  into  the  depths  of  the 
subject  which  interested  himself  and  the  public  and 
brought  up  facts  and  motives.  With  family  traditions 
and  an  experience  in  public  affairs  reaching  back  to  the 
sources  of  our  government,  with  systematic  habits  of 
which  the  younger  statesman  might  despair  who  was 
unwilling  to  give  up  the  pleasures  of  social  intercourse, 
Adams  in  his  old  age  knew  more  of  his  country's  his 
tory  than  any  other  American  living.  Reading  and 
experience  made  him  full,  journalizing  made  him  exact. 
Adams's  personal  appearance  was  as  we  have  elsewhere 
described  it,  save  for  the  encroachment  of  old  age, 
which  furrowed  the  face  and  silvered  the  scanty  hair; 
his  countenance  was  sober  and  morose  almost  to  sor 
row;  his  dress,  unstudied  and  not  seldom  careless,  be 
trayed  a  frugal  and  unsocial  disposition;  his  coldness 
and  self-absorption  repelled  from  personal  contact 
many  who  admired  him  at  a  distance.  While  most 
other  public  men  of  the  day  made  an  art  of  attracting 
acquaintance,  he  kept  up,  more,  perhaps,  than  he  was 
conscious  of  it,  those  invisible  barriers  of  family  and 
classic  pride  which  make  common  men  feel  their  in 
feriority.  Such  a  man  could  not  inspire  affection  co- 
equally  with  respect.  It  was  the  force  of  his  splendid 
example,  as  a  Cato  among  degenerate  men,  that  drew 
the  younger,  from  shame  or  admiration,  to  the  side  of 
this  solitary  sire;  combatant  as  he  was,  in  debate  so 


272         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

bitter,  of  such  egotism  in  his  independence  that  the 
House  listened  to  him  with  alternate  good-will  and 
anger.  But  this  fighting  man  of  infirm  temper  could 
always  command  an  audience.  His  clock-like  con 
stancy  made  all  insensibly  lean  on  him.  First,  or  nearly 
first,  on  the  roll-call  for  some  fifteen  years,  his  unflinch 
ing  vote  instructed  the  doubtful.  Sitting  attentively 
in  that  familiar  seat  on  the  left  of  the  Speaker  which  all 
strangers  entering  the  chamber  first  gazed  at,  the  illus 
trious  ex-President  grew  more  and  more  to  be  the 
monumental  figure  in  this  changing  body.  His  seat 
he  never  changed,  nor  was  he  absent  from  his  post  of 
duty  during  the  long  season  of  his  healthful  old  age. 

"It  would  scarcely  surprise  me  more,"  was  the  felici 
tous  phrase  of  Everett,  who  now  sat  by  him  for  the  last 
time,  "to  miss  one  of  the  marble  columns  of  the  hall 
from  its  pedestal  than  to  see  his  chair  empty  when  the 
House  was  in  session."  Impetuous  in  his  leadership 
when  under  excitement,  Adams  studied  his  own  defects 
and  tried  to  be  temperate  as  well  as  bold. 

The  greatest  of  ambitious  minds  will  not  apprehend 
readily  the  sphere  of  influence  which  Providence  has 
assigned  it.  This  triumph  on  the  floor  with  which 
Adams's  more  striking  career  now  opens  brought  him 
a  pique  which  he  took  to  heart.  His  present  aspira 
tion  was  to  enter  the  Senate,  but  the  struggle  of  can 
didates  being  close  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  a 
report  of  his  speech,  which  was  somewhat  colored, 
turned  the  scales  against  him,  and  John  Davis,  the  gov 
ernor,  a  careful  man  to  train  with  a  party,  was  chosen 
as  Webster's  safer  colleague.  Had  Adams  transferred 
his  seat  to  the  other  wing,  his  fame  would  have  been 
eclipsed ;  but  remaining,  as  before,  a  sage  among  com 
moners  less  illustrious  than  the  Senate,  closer  to  the 


WHIG  PARTY  FORMED  273 

people,  more  turbulent,  and  more  impressionable,  his 
figure  stands  vividly  out  on  imperishable  canvas. 


The  political  elements  of  the  country,  too  long  hin 
dered  in  course  by  their  triple  division,  now  turned 
slowly  into  the  channel-bed  of  two  distinct  national 
parties.  Jackson  was  the  personage  that  di 
vided  them.  Against  the  rock  of  his  popu 
larity  these  opposition  streams  had  dashed  in  vain.  It 
was  now  time  to  unite  and  flow  onward ;  and  his  high 
handed  transfer  of  the  public  deposits  and  Executive 
war  upon  the  Bank,  a  policy  which  divided  Jackso- 
nians  themselves,  gave  the  pregnant  opportunity. 
Events  still  earlier  had  tended  to  this  confluence, — the 
national  election  in  1832,  which  tolled  the  knell  of  the 
Republican  and  Anti-Mason  parties,  and  the  troubles 
in  South  Carolina,  which  had  not  been  pacified  without 
making  the  President  offensive  to  the  State-rights  dog- 
matizers  of  Virginia  and  the  cotton  States.  Too  often 
had  Republicans  and  Anti-Masons  been  opposed  ever  to 
unite  under  one  or  the  other  standard,  nor  could  Clay's 
grand  old  party  survive  longer  the  memory  of  its  re 
peated  defeats  and  schemes  of  policy  abandoned.  But 
now,  with  the  tariff  taken  out  of  politics  by  the  com 
promise  of  1833,  internal  improvements  a  corpse,  the 
present  National  Bank  under  sentence  of  death,  and  no 
sharp  issue  left  to  distract  them,  well  might  the  foes 
of  this  administration  shuffle  off  the  coil  of  old  princi 
ples  and  raise  together  a  new  party ;  protesting,  embar 
rassing  all  they  could  the  men  in  power,  but  postponing 
their  own  financial  and  other  plans  until  these  could  be 
concerted  at  better  leisure. 

Names  are  things  in  politics;  the  title  of  a  party  is 


274         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

its  talisman  to  conjure  with,  while  the  real  or  pretended 
lineage  which  it  boasts  of  kindles  the  popular  imagina 
tion.  This  "Republican"  party,  offspring  of  the  great 
Jefferson,  who  had  given  that  moderate  name  as  the  one 
to  conquer  by,  now  dissolves,  and  another  comes  forth 
in  the  same  plane  of  vision,  there  to  shine  for  some 
twenty  years  and  then  melt  into  the  phantom  of  the  for 
mer  party  once  more  as  the  latter  grows  out  from  the 
camera.  Shall  not  that  process  of  change  be  repeated 
while  lasts  the  republic  ?  The  new  national  party  was 
the  "Whig"  party.  The  attempt  to  unite  the  whole  op 
position  to  Jacksonism  under  the  name  of  Whigs  began 
in  the  spring  of  1834,  when  important  State  elections 
followed  the  first  panic  caused  by  the  removal  of  the 
deposits  and  the  President's  firm  refusal  to  restore 
them.  The  name  itself  came  first  into  use  at  that  time 
in  Connecticut  and  the  city  of  New  York,  and  kindled 
a  blaze  throughout  the  Union,  being  suddenly  and  spon 
taneously  adopted.  By  "Whig"  was  expressed  the  an 
tagonism  felt  to  the  high  prerogative  or  Tory  doctrines 
of  Jackson, — "King  Andrew,"  as  his  enemies  now 
called  him, — who  seemed  to  have  usurped  all  the  func 
tions  of  state  like  an  absolute  monarch.  The  name 
pleased  the  Federal  families  of  New  England,  never  par 
tial  to  Jeffersonian  traditions,  and  Webster  himself  had, 
in  1804,  appealed  in  a  Federal  pamphlet  "to  old  Whigs." 
It  pleased  the  State-rights  men  at  the  South,  for  Hayne 
had  used  the  word  favorably  in  his  debate  with  Web 
ster,  and  so  had  Jefferson  in  one  of  the  last  letters  he 
ever  wrote.  These  Whigs  of  1834  announced  them 
selves  the  true  successors  of  the  Whigs  of  1776,  and 
likened  their  course  to  that  of  the  rebel  colonists.  Their 
liberty  poles  defied  the  hickory  pole.  They  chose  for 
appropriate  emblems  the  national  flag,  live  eagles,  por- 


WHIGS  AND  DEMOCRATS          275 

traits  of  Washington.  In  such  a  party  Clay  and  the 
war  men  of  1812  were  joined  on  equal  terms  by  the  sons 
of  Revolutionary  sires.  "I  have  been  educated  from 
my  cradle,"  now  proclaimed  Webster,  with  zealous 
pride,  "in  the  principles  of  the  Whigs  of  '76." 

Against  this  new  party,  or,  perhaps  we  should  say, 
this  foetus  of  a  party,  were  arrayed  at  this  time  the  Jack 
son  Democracy,  led  by  the  federal  office-holders,  who 
used  the  full  strength  of  their  position ;  all  under  strict 
martial  discipline.  Whatever  the  chief  ordered  must 
be  obeyed.  These  gloried,  as  well  they  might,  in  the  no 
ble  name  of  Democrat,  and  stood  the  stronger  by  sinking 
deeper  their  base.  Their  hurrah  was  for  Jackson,  the 
hero  of  New  Orleans,  the  foe  of  nullification,  the  cham 
pion  of  the  people  against  monster  monopolies  and  the, 
money-power.  They  claimed  as  theirs  the  votes  of  the] 
common  people  and  the  friendship,  too,  of  State  banks. 
But  a  new  name  and  a  new  subdivision  had  begun  to 
cleave  the  ranks  of  this  great  party  in  the  Middle  States. 
About  New  York  City  arose  a  combination  opposed  to 
all  bank  charters,  all  monopolies ;  this  was  the 
"Equal  Rights  party,"  a  new  growth  from 
the  seeds  of  a  workingmen's  league  which  sprang  up 
five  years  earlier  there  and  in  Philadelphia  and  then 
died  out.  A  newspaper  in  jest  dubbed  these  reform 
Democrats  "loco-focos,"  *  and  the  name  adhered  to  the 
"Equal  Rights"  faction  from  that  time  forward,  and, 
more  than  this,  it  soon  extended  to  the  whole  Demo 
cratic  party  of  the  Union,  or  to  the  Jackson- Van  Buren 
wing  at  least  which  dominated  it,  and  did  not  disappear 
for  ten  years.  The  leaven,  too,  of  these  "equal  rights" 
doctrines  worked  in  politics  long  after  the  faction  which 

*See  the  incident  of  the  meeting  in  a  hall  and  loco-foco  matches, 
IV.,  194- 


276         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

first  formulated  them  had  been  sold  out  by  the  dema 
gogues  who  got  control  of  it.  Thus  fantastical  may  be 
the  circumstances  by  which  a  new  political  sect  gains 
its  name  and  its  lodgment  in  the  popular  mind  and  be 
comes  historical. 

The  great  body  of  our  American  democracy  has 
always  been  better  in  its  creed  than  its  practice.  Strong 
naturally  through  that  fundamental  faith  in  human 
nature  and  in  man's  capacity  for  unrestrained  living 
which  gives  it  such  immense  scope  in  a  growing  re 
public,  it  slips  back  unconsciously  into  the  mire  whence 
the  poverty-stricken  millions  emerge  and  falls  too  easy 
a  prey  to  vice  and  ignorance.  This  is  most  true  of 
manufacturing  towns  and  the  great  promiscuous  and 
populous  centres  where  these  toilers  become  the  victims 
of  the  slums  and  grog-shops  which  must  thrive  by  them. 
The  drill  and  drum-beat  of  office-holders,  first  perfected 
in  the  Empire  State,  Jackson  made  a  national  regula 
tion,  and  used  the  wide  patronage  of  government  to 
draw  round  him  a  praetorian  band.  Nothing  gave  our 
national  politics  so  downward  a  course  as  this,  for 
office-holding  lost  the  starch  of  self-respect  when  men 
held  by  the  tenure  not  of  merit  but  political  favor.  The 
prescriptive  example  set  by  one  party  the  other  followed 
henceforth.  Both  parties  might  boast  of  great  leaders, 
but  the  opposition  had  the  more  intelligent  rank  and 
file;  so  that,  as  one  of  our  scholars  has  well  expressed 
it,  the  Democrats  had  the  better  principles,  but  the 
Whigs  the  better  men.  Southern  planters  seem  to 
have  preferred  the  alliance  of  leaders  at  the  North  who, 
like  the  Gaelic  chiefs,  could  bring  their  clans  with  them  ; 
they  worked  through  the  machinery  of  numbers;  in 
stinct  and  tradition,  too,  bred  in  them  the  Jeffersonian 
distaste  for  public  pomp  and  public  enterprise,  and  for 


, 


WHIGS  AND  DEMOCRATS         277 

wealth  founded  in  commerce  and  the  arts  ;  and  yet  the 
Whigs,  by  their  devotion  to  the  Union,  gained  a  good 
footing  in  that  section.  The  Southerner,  on  his  own 
soil,  was  not  unlike  the  Tory  squire,  having  a  feudal 
partiality  for  lands  and  vassals;  but  he  was  ambitious 
of  national  patronage,  and  this  inclined  him  to  persons 
wherever  they  could  be  found. 

In  general,  the  Democrats  sided  with  persons.     But  j 
the   Whigs,  on  the  other   hand,   leaned   to   property,  / 
to   great   public   and   private   undertakings   involving  j 
money  and  fostered  by  privilege  and  favoritism,  and 
to    the    men    engaged    in    them.      Their    party,    like 
the  earlier   Federalist,    soon  became  the   favorite  of 
northern  polite  circles,  of  scholars,  professional  men,  • 
the  rich  and  prosperous,  tradesmen,  bankers,  of  such       °£ 
as    led    good    society    or    hung    to    its    skirts;    of  \ 

capitalists  and  those  who  bask  in  the  sunshine  of 
capital,  but  most  of  all  of  manufacturers  and  mer 
chants;  classes  intelligent,  yet  timid  lest  they  should 
lose  something,  and  disposed  to  personal  schemes. 
Thrifty  farmers  might  join  this  standard,  but  rarely 
did  the  mechanics  and  laboring  men,  the  jealous  poor, 
unless  seduced  or  intimidated.  Unlike  the  old  Fed 
eralist,  however,  the  Whig,  with  his  long  training  and 
antecedents,  was  in  sufficient  sympathy  with  popular 
institutions,  only  that  he  preponderated  more  to  pater 
nal  and  spectacular  rule,  while  Democrats  favored  self- 
rule,  even  at  the  risk  of  misrule.  The  best  practical 
wisdom  of  the  day  in  trade  and  finance  was  at  the 
service  of  this  new  party,  the  most  eloquent  expound 
ers,  too,  of  such  topics  ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  with  such 
a  rank  and  file,  there  was  constant  danger  that  politics 
would  be  measured  by  the  yardstick  of  expediency,  and 
principle  postponed  for  the  sake  of  heaping  up  the  im- 


278         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

mediate  pile.  Launched  into  the  sea  of  politics,  this 
new  ship,  staunch  and  respectable,  ploughed  the  waves 
under  full  sail,  a  conservative  in  motion. 


Let  us  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of  American 
liberty,  which  was  now  taking  a  new  and  freer  flight. 
America  certainly  was  at  this  time  prosperous  and  ad 
vancing  towards  a  richer  range  of  life.  In  nations, 
like  individuals,  there  comes  that  stage  of  development 
when  the  young  blood  leaps  wildly  and  the  sense  of 
animal  vigor  tempts  the  healthy  body  to  use  and  even 
abuse  its  functions.  The  swathing  bands  of  discipline 
were  being  removed  from  the  limbs  of  our  common 
people;  and  why  not  romp  and  range  and  ravage,  in 
dulging  the  lusty  appetite  until  experience  has  taught 
that  salutary  lesson  of  self-constraint  which  is  the  last 
corrective?  Yet  the  discipline  of  society  must  be  faulty, 
indeed,  which  leaves  all  to  self-discipline.  Among  the 
political  follies  of  this  day  the  sage  might  perceive  an 
increasing  tendency  to  popular  legislation,  such  as  the 
abolition  of  the  death  penalty,  the  treatment  of  crime  as 
a  sort  of  disease  to  arouse  one's  pity,  the  relaxation  of 
all  punishment,  all  restraint.  But  is  natural  impulse 
the  true  barometer  of  character?  Do  not  the  wild  ex 
cesses  of  youth  sow  the  seeds  of  premature  death  or  a 
corrupt  old  age?  This  administration  had  been  taking 
off  the  bandages;  non-interference  was  the  essence  of 
the  democratic  dogma ;  America,  obeying  the  law  of  its 
passion,  was  heading  to  violent  collision  and  corrup 
tion.  Many  of  us,  to  be  sure,  despaired  too  easily ;  and 
Europeans  held  up  this  picture  of  American  life  as  a 
warning  to  their  own  countries.  But  the  spectacle  of 
executive  encroachment  which  this  administration  fur- 


PUBLIC  DISORDERS  279 

nished,  of  arraying  class  against  class,  of  bull  baiting, 
as  it  were,  the  rich  and  respectable  for  the  sport  of  the 
populace,  of  lifting  the  President  into  a  sort  of  mon 
arch  of  the  multitude,  as  though  Congress  and  the  judi 
ciary  did  not  represent  the  people  likewise,  of  dispensing 
offices  like  a  despot ;  all  this  had  its  pernicious  effect  in 
producing  scenes  of  disorder,  happily  but  temporary. 
Government  for  this  term  was  one  of  personal  example, 
honest  but  barbaric;  for  Jackson's  policy,  so  nearly  ex 
cellent  in  its  main  pursuit,  had  become  imbued  with  a 
spirit  of  lawlessness,  or  at  least  it  gave  that  impression, 
and  the  impression  produced  the  injury. 


A  new  abolition  movement  at  the  North  did  not,  like 
the  Quaker  one  of  former  days,  respect  constitutional 
bounds  nor  seek  mild  persuasion  of  the  white 
master  who  held  the  local  law  in  his  hands. 
It  boldly  proclaimed  that  the  laws  of  nature  were  para 
mount  to  a  human  institution;  it  preached  freedom  as 
of  divine  right  and  in  defiance,  if  need  be,  of  the  en 
slaver.  But  in  law-respecting  communities  like  ours 
all  such  agitation  bruised  itself  like  a  bird  against  the 
solid  wall  of  the  federal  constitution,  which,  wisely  or 
unwisely,  surrounded  the  institution  and  sanctioned  its 
existence  within  certain  State  confines.  Antipathy  to 
weaker  men  and  races,  and  a  dogged  attachment  to 
property  as  something  with  which  none  others  are  to 
interfere,  save  as  their  own  property  may  be  injured 
by  it,  are  two  strong  traits  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  He 
has  a  conscience,  domestic  virtue,  and  a  restraining 
common  sense  to  be  influenced;  but  of  woman  herself 
Shakespeare's  Petruchio  talked  like  an  Englishman 
rather  than  an  Italian  of  his  day,  when  he  said,  "I  will 


280         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

be  master  of  what  is  mine  own."  And  such  was  our 
slaveholder's  response  to  the  abolitionist  when  menaced 
where  he  stood.  Pride  and  blind  interest  banded  the 
southern  masters  in  bristling  defiance;  patriots  of  all 
sections  felt  the  constraint  of  the  written  law,  and  then 
abolitionism  slid  into  an  angry  tirade  against  the  con 
stitution  as  a  covenant  with  death  and  agreement  with 
hell,  and  its  creed  became  "no  union  with  slavehold 
ers," — in  a  word,  disunion,  because  instant  and  legal 
ized  abolition  was  impossible.  We  shall  see  in  the 
angry  years  that  follow  southern  secessionists  and 
northern  abolitionists  standing  upon  essentially  the 
same  platform,  though  at  opposite  ends,  both  demand 
ing  that  the  American  Union  be  broken  up. 

The  boldest  exponent  of  this  new  anti-slavery  school, 
the  pioneer  and  arch-agitator  of  immediate  abolition, 
of  conscience  above  the  constitution,  was  William  Lloyd 

Garrison.     He  it  was  who  opened  this  new 
jlnVi.     vear  as  the  editor  and  publisher,  in  Boston, 

of  a  little  sheet  known  as  the  Liberator;  stern 
ly  resolving  that  this  paper  should  go  forth  to  the  world 
so  long  as  he  could  subsist  upon  bread  and  water,  or 
find  employment  with  his  hands.  A  practical  printer 
as  well  as  editor,  he  set  up  his  own  type  in  his  obscure 
den  of  an  office  with  precarious  aid,  spelling  out  by  his 
metal  letters  thoughts  which  he  had  not  committed  to 
paper,  making  up  his  bed  at  night  on  the  floor,  and  sub 
sisting  from  day  to  day  on  modest  rations  procured 
from  the  humble  bakery  and  fruit-shop.  One  or  two 
liberal  friends  supplied  money  and  subscriptions. 
Forced  rapidly  into  notice  by  a  free  circulation  south 
ward,  the  Liberator,  in  its  very  first  year,  was  so  well 
known  and  feared  that  the  Georgia  legislature  offered 
$5,000  for  the  arrest  of  any  one  found  circulating  it; 


THE  ABOLITIONISTS  281 

while  the  conservative  press  of  the  Union  denounced 
the  editor  as  a  fanatic,  one  who  was  madly  doing  all 
the  injury  possible  to  the  cause  he  affected  to  support. 
Garrison  had  deliberately  chosen  at  the  start  the  radical 
ground  he  ever  after  maintained,  retracting  an  assent 
he  had  formerly  given  to  the  threadbare  theory  of  grad 
ual  and  persuasive  abolition.  With  merciless  severity, 
he  arraigned  the  frozen  apathy  of  the  North  and  the 
prostitution  of  the  South  on  the  slavery  question;  he 
could  not  tolerate  scruples  on  behalf  of  the  written  law ; 
all  doughfaces,  apologists,  and  timeservers  he  wrote 
down  as  traitors  and  cowards,  and  unhesitatingly  he 
declared  slavery  to  be  a  crime  and  the  slaveholder  him 
self  a  criminal.  "I  am  in  earnest,"  were  his  words, 
confessing  his  own  severity;  "I  will  not  equivocate;  I 
will  not  excuse;  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch;  and  I 
will  be  heard." 

A  quiet  and  inoffensive  man  of  aspect,  bald-headed, 
wearing  spectacles  through  which  his  eyes  darted  a 
keen  but  kindly  glance,  a  strict  abstainer  from  liquors 
and  tobacco;  and  so  gentle  withal  to  look  upon  that 
Harriet  Martineau  declared  him  the  handsomest  man 
she  had  seen  in  America,  in  spite  of  an  excessive  self- 
humiliation  which  might  be  ascribed  to  the  conscious 
ness  that  he  was  intensely  hated  by  good  society,  Garri 
son  was  impelled  on  his  course  by  the  harsh  experience 
he  suffered  in  a  border  slave  State,  which  left  behind  a 
rankling  sense  of  injury.  And  thus,  on  the  free  soil 
of  Boston,  the  Liberator  was  born.  How  strangely  do 
one's  opinions  change  with  the  current  of  his  feelings. 
Scarcely  two  years  earlier,  when  a  Vermont  editor,  and 
a  promoter  of  negro  colonization,  he  had  written  an 
ode  for  Independence  day  brimming  with  the  Union 
sentiment,  and  his  appeal  to  "a  people  whose  hearts  are 


282         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

but  one"  jangled  strangely  with  those  bitter  invectives 
of  his  new  press,  which  declared  the  American  consti 
tution  to  be  "the  most  bloody  and  heaven-daring  com 
pact  ever  contrived,"  and  "in  the  nature  of  things,  and 
according  to  the  law  of  God,  null  and  void  from  the  be 
ginning." 


Marshall,  the  chief-justice,  had  now  passed  away 

— a  man  whose  intellect  and  clear  sense  of  justice 

needed  no  swathe  of  citations  to  pierce  a 

juijr'e.  legal  principle  to  the  bottom.  Head  of  the 
national  judiciary  for  nearly  thirty-five  years, 
while  Presidents  came  and  went,  and  swaying  a  bench 
whose  membership  seldom  changed,  by  his  quiet 
energy  and  force  of  character,  his  simple  manners 
and  imperturbable  temper,  he  stole  into  the  hearts  of 
the  American  people  by  slow  degrees  while  building 
about  them  an  impregnable  wall  of  precedents.  The 
supremacy  of  the  nation  was  his  design,  and  silent  con 
tinuity  the  source  of  his  power.  Stronger  than  any 
maker  of  the  laws  is  he  who  can  long  construe  them. 
Marshall  had  made  the  Supreme  Court  a  bulwark 
against  the  encroaching  tide  of  Jeffersonian  Democ 
racy  ;  and  through  him  Federalism  impressed  the  image 
of  the  republic  with  its  last  and  softest  touches.  His 
death  left  a  bench  of  able  associates,  all  of  whom  had 
seen  political  service,  but  none  save  Story  ranked 
among  famous  jurists.  Story's  promotion  to  chief-jus 
tice  was  impossible  under  the  present  administration. 
A  new  career  now  awaited  the  court,  and  the  hero  of 
blood  and  iron  impelled  it  forward;  having  fought  the 
national  judiciary,  he  now  remodelled  it.  Three  out 
of  the  five  associates,  McLean,  Baldwin,  and  Wayne, 


TANEY  CHIEF  JUSTICE  283 

had  already  been  seated  under  his  commission;  Philip 
P.  Barbour,  of  Virginia,  he  added  as  the 
sixth,  in  place  of  Duval,  who  had  resigned. 
But  Jackson's  triumph  came  when  a  chief -justice  had 
to  be  named;  and  Taney,  rejected  so  lately  by  the  Sen 
ate  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  because  he  had  re 
moved  the  deposits,  and  again  thrown  out  by  adver 
saries  for  associate  justice,  now  reached  the  very  pin 
nacle  of  his  wishes ;  for  scarcely  had  this  Congress  met 
when  the  President  named  him  as  Marshall's  successor, 
and  his  confirmation  followed. 


Large  space  has  been  given  in  our  narrative  to  An 
drew  Jackson's  administration  because  of  its  strong 
idiosyncrasies  and  the  character  of  the  national  events  it 
served  to  develop.  He  has  left  a  landmark  in  our  annals 
for  all  time.  Much  is  "sald'of  the  influence  of  ideas  in 
producing  history,  but  the  really  controlling  influence 
of  this  epoch  was  that  of  personal  example.  And  never 
did  popular  parties  opposed  to  one  another  respond  to 
personal  guidance  so  heartily  as  those  which  now  grew 
up  under  the  leadership  of  those  fierce  combatants,  al 
ways  at  variance  with  each  other,  Clay  and  Jackson; 
the  one  combining  popular  elements  too  intelligent  and 
opinionated  not  to  show  signs  of  jealous  dissension, 
the  other  having  a  blind  democracy  for  a  nucleus  so 
dense,  so  devoted,  and  withal  so  carefully  disciplined, 
that  rivalry  was  kept  low  and  political  mutiny  punish 
able  as  though  by  martial  law.  Strong  in  all  his  traits 
of  character,  his  vices  as  well  as  his  virtues,  Jackson's 
public  example  was  one  for  positive  good  and  positive, 
evil, — a  mixture  of  brass  and  clay.  There  could  be 
nothing  negative  about  him.  What  he  purposed,  that 


284         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

he  put  his  hand  to  and  bore  it  safely  through.  His 
mind  moved  rapidly,  and  with  an  almost  lightning-like 
perception  he  had  resolved  the  point  while  others  were 
deliberating;  and  right  or  wrong,  he  was  tenacious  of 
his  conclusion,  and  fought  to  have  his  way  like  one  who 
felt  it  shame  not  to  win.  There  was  no  twilight  of 
dubiety  about  him ;  he  knew,  and  knew  earnestly ;  and 
within  the  steel  horizon  which  bounded  his  vision  he 
could  pierce  to  the  circumference  in  all  directions.  As 
his  intellect  admitted  of  no  half-truth,  so  did  his  nature 
revolt  at  bargains  and  compromises,  such  as  Clay,  his 
mortal  enemy,  was  an  adept  in  arranging;  but  with 
him  it  was  to  conquer  or  die  on  every  occasion,  win  a 
clean  victory  or  endure  a  clean  defeat.  This  temper, 
as  those  who  knew  him  best  have  admitted,  gave  him  a 
load  to  carry  all  his  life ;  every  step  he  took  was  a  con 
test;  and  yet,  if  ever  mortal  may  be  said  to  have  tri 
umphed  in  what  he  undertook,  every  contest  was  a  vic 
tory.  Jackson  could  not  live  without  a  quarrel;  and, 
though  capable  of  strong  and  lasting  attachment, 
friends  and  enemies  often  changed  places  as  his  ambi 
tion  developed,  and  no  one  could  remain  long  in  his 
confidence  who  did  not  humor  his  foibles  and  bend  to 
his  purpose.  Conscientious  difference  of  opinion  he 
knew  not  how  to  tolerate,  and  friendship  that  was  not 
all  in  all  was  not  at  all.  Gratitude  implied  a  self-abase 
ment,  and  he  felt  it  for  no  one;  even  coequal  compan 
ionship  was  something  of  a  yoke  to  him;  it  was  ad 
miring  devotion  that  won  his  heart,  and  the  better  angel 
of  his  nature  was  compassion.  But  though  knightly 
towards  women,  tender  to  children,  the  young,  the 
gentle,  the  fallen,  to  all  who  nestled  up  confidingly,  his 
contempt  for  weakness  disposed  him  to  snatch  what 
ever  he  wanted,  regardless  of  others'  rights.  He  could 


JACKSON'S  CHARACTER  285 

bully  a  sister  republic  to  get  her  territory,  and  drive 
the  half-tamed  Indian  from  his  homestead  and  the  white 
man's  neighborhood  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  all 
this  with  hardly  the  pretence  of  compunction.  Frank 
and  sincere  in  the  main,  and  wishing  to  be  thought  so 
whatever  ill  might  be  imputed  to  him,  of  manners  cor 
dial  and  graceful,  he  was  a  generous  host  at  home,  and 
after  his  own  ideal  a  southern  gentleman.  Yet  for  all 
this  he  had  something  of  the  borderer's  fierce  disposi 
tion  ;  with  the  men  among  whom  he  had  been  born  and 
bred  might  made  right,  and  honor  was  vindicated  by  a 
brace  of  pistols  at  ten  paces.  Such  a  citizen  could  never 
have  been  exalted  to  national  distinction  in  the  courtlier 
age  of  the  republic,  and  his  fame  waited  long  for  civil 
recognition,  even  after  his  military  success.  Spring 
ing  up  out-of-doors  and  in  the  free  sunshine,  rough  con 
tact  with  mankind  in  a  pioneer  society  gave  him  an 
education;  and  as  a  slaveholder,  long  used  to  an  easy 
independence  and  to  being  waited  upon,  he  acquired 
that  self-confidence  in  later  life  without  which  con 
sciousness  of  merit  must  fail  of  renown.  As  chief 
magistrate  he  was  an  innovation  upon  American  life, 
a  novelty, — in  some  sense  a  protest  against  the  past. 
He  was  the  first  great  product  of  the  West,  humanly 
speaking,  Clay  only  excepted,  whose  genius  partook 
more  of  Eastern  example.  He  was  the  first  President 
of  this  Union  chosen  from  the  west  of  the  Alleghanies 
and  a  pioneer  State;  the  first  ever  borne  into  the  chair 
with  a  general  hurrah  and  no  real  sense  of  civil  supe 
riority  for  the  office.  He  was  the  first  President  from 
what  we  call  the  masses ;  the  first  whose  following  vul 
garized,  so  to  speak,  the  national  administration  and 
social  life  at  the  capital.  Old  age  and  debility  had 
much  to  do  with  the  venerating  applause  which  con- 


286         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

stantly  followed  him,  and  forced  even  his  whims  to  be 
respected;  the  people  seemed  anxious  to  make  amends 
for  so  long  neglecting  to  advance  him. 

Jackson  ruled  by  his  indomitable  force  of  will,  his 
tenacity  of  purpose,  courage  and  energy.  He  did  not 
investigate  nor  lean  upon  advice,  but  made  up  his  mind 
by  whatever  strange  and  crooked  channels  came  his  in 
formation,  and  then  took  the  responsibility.  Experi 
ence  made  him  rapid  rather  than  rash,  though  he  was 
always  impulsive;  and  he  would  despatch  the  business 
which  engaged  his  thoughts,  and  that  most  thoroughly. 
Though  stretched  on  the  bed  of  sickness,  he  held  the 
thread  of  his  purpose,  where  none  could  take  it  from 
him ;  his  will  rallied  and  beat  under  the  body.  He  de 
cided  affairs  quickly,  and  upon  impulse  more  than  re 
flection;  but  his  intuitions  were  keen,  often  profound, 
in  politics  as  well  as  war.  His  vigor  as  an  Executive 
at  his  time  of  life  was  truly  wonderful.  He  left  noth 
ing  in  affairs  for  others  to  finish,  betrayed  no  sign  of 
fear  or  timidity,  shrank  from  no  burden  however  mo 
mentous,  but  marched  to  the  muzzle  of  his  purpose, 
and,  like  an  old  soldier,  gained  half  the  advantage  in  a 
fight  by  his  bold  despatch  and  vigor.  The  night  march 
and  surprise  were  points  he  had  learned  in  Indian  war 
fare;  and  were  it  war  or  politics,  he  carried  out  what 
he  had  fixed  upon  with  constant  intrepidity.  This  in 
trepidity  went  with  a  conscious  sense  of  duty;  for, 
though  a  Cromwell  in  spirit,  Jackson's  ambition  was 
honestly  to  serve  his  country.  Loyalty  to  the  Union, 
sympathy  with  the  American  common  people,  were  the 
chief  impulses  of  his  being,  for  all  he  loved  power;  and 
hence  a  majority  was  almost  sure  to  sustain  him. 
Courage  and  directness  the  people  admire  in  any  man, 
and  a  sordid  or  usurping  nature  they  are  apt  to  dis- 


JACKSON'S  CHARACTER  287 

cover.  Jackson  had  the  Midas  touch,  which  could 
transmute  whatever  he  handled,  if  not  into  solid  gold, 
at  least  into  a  substance  of  popularity.  And  yet  no 
servant  of  the  ballot-box  felt  less  the  need  of  courting 
popularity,  or  of  waiting  for  public  opinion  to  bear  his 
plans  forward.  Lesser  statesmen  might  be  exponents, 
but  he  led  on,  leaving  the  public  to  comment  as  it 
might. 

We  have  intimated  more  than  once  in  our  narrative 
that  Jackson  was  neither  so  frank  nor  so  chivalrous  as 
he  passed  for,  nor  yet  so  little  of  a  politician.  Was 
there  ever  a  great  general  who  did  not  employ  strategy  ? 
Jackson  could  dissimulate,  and  in  his  very  maladies  he 
gained  some  crafty  advantage.  One  of  his  warmest 
admirers  has  pronounced  him  a  consummate  actor, 
whose  art  often  imposed  the  policy  of  rashness.  Van 
Buren  found  him  a  man  guarded  and  self-controlled 
where  he  had  seemed  impetuous.  He  could  put  off  an 
inconvenient  friendship  so  as  to  make  his  friend  appear 
the  wrong-doer.  Of  darker  duplicity  signs,  though  in 
conclusive,  are  not  wanting.  But  his  blunt  perceptions 
of  right  and  wrong,  his  brutal  obstinacy,  and  the  tail- 
wagging  subservience  which  he  exacted  from  those 
about  him  did  the  country  he  meant  to  honor  an  irrep 
arable  mischief.  While  President  his  irascibility 
forced  those  who  would  influence  him  to  take  to  tortu 
ous  methods.  Cabinet  officers,  men  far  better  versed 
in  affairs  than  himself,  had  to  fall  in  with  his  opinions, 
and  seem  to  yield;  overreaching,  if  they  might,  when 
executing  his  orders,  or  bringing  the  subject  up  again. 
This,  and  his  preference  for  the  kitchen  advisers,  had 
something  to  do  with  his  frequent  cabinet  changes.  All 
had  to  pay  court  to  get  on.  Van  Buren  earned  most 
from  his  intimacy,  playing  the  faithful  hound,  and  it 


288         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

cost  him  dearly  in  the  end.  The  circle  surrounding  the 
old  man  fed  him  with  gross  flattery.  All  this  gave 
soon  the  smirch  to  decent  self-respect.  Personalism 
came  to  tincture  all  politics,  all  policies,  all  politicians, 
under  his  arbitrary  and  exacting  administration;  and 
the  painted  Jezebel  of  party  patronage  seized  upon  the 
public  trusts  for  her  favorites.  Such  a  state  of  things 
was  sure  to  breed  corruption  sooner  or  later.  Praeto 
rian  bands  showed  the  first  symptom  of  Rome's  decay. 
Bands  of  office-holders,  united  by  the  necessity  of  keep 
ing  the  spoils  and  salaries  from  other  bands  equally 
ravenous,  may  prove  an  early  symptom  of  our  own,  if 
the  people  submit  to  it.  Personally  honest  and  un 
stained  by  bribery,  Jackson  played  nevertheless  into  the 
hands  of  others  who  traded  upon  his  violence;  greedy 
followers  milked  the  offices  they  had  gained  by  partisan 
service.  Even  the  battery  of  the  National  Bank,  in 
which  he  led  off,  had  its  pugilistic  aspect ;  money  put  up 
against  money,  and  monopoly  fighting  monopoly. 

Jackson's  illiteracy  is  admitted  by  his  admirers;  but 
opponents  of  his  day  made  too  much  of  it,  as  though 
administration  were  a  matter  of  mere  scholarship. 
Longer  experience  in  popular  self-government  has  dis 
pelled  that  illusion.  It  was  of  greater  note  that  his 
strong  personal  feelings  mingled  in  all  he  said  or  did, 
and  that  opponents  were  colored  by  his  temperament. 
In  conversation  he  interested,  whether  he  convinced  or 
not,  being  clear,  earnest  and  straight  to  the  point  both 
in  thought  and  expression;  and  while  no  question  ad 
mitted  of  two  sides  to  his  mind,  his  own  was  fearlessly 
grasped.  As  his  speech  was  sagacious  and  incisive, 
in  spite  of  slips  in  grammar  or  mispronunciation,  so  he 
could  write  with  powerful  effect,  though  no  scholar  in 
the  true  sense,  and  in  personal  controversy  he  was  one 


JACKSON'S  CHARACTER  289 

to  be  feared.  His  state  papers  engaged  able  minds  in 
and  out  of  his  cabinet,  yet  the  direction  of  thought,  the 
statement  of  policy,  the  temper  of  the  document,  were 
his  own.  Others  might  elaborate  the  argument  for  him 
or  polish  and  arrange  the  composition,  but,  after  all,  his 
was  the  central  thought;  and  he  would  flourish  over 
the  paper  with  a  rapid  pen,  and  a  huge  one,  until  sheet 
after  sheet  lay  before  him  glistening  with  ink  and  glow 
ing  with  expression  as  though  it  were  written  in  his 
heart's  blood.  That  there  were  misspelt  words  to  be 
corrected,  or  awkward  sentences  to  be  trussed  up  after 
wards  by  his  secretary,  is  not  to  be  denied.  In  short, 
Andrew  Jackson  fed  little  upon  books  and  much  upon 
experience  with  unconventional  life  and  human  na 
ture;  but  he  had  what  is  essential  to  eminence  in  either 
case,  a  vigorous  intellect  and  a  strong  will.  In  the 
conduct  of  affairs  he  took  advice  wherever  he  saw  fit, 
and  like  a  commander  secretive  of  his  own  plans, 
tested  the  views  of  his  council  and  then  made  up  his 
own  mind. 

Such  was  the  remarkable  man  whose  shaping  influ 
ence  in  national  affairs  made  him  the  transcendent 
figure  of  these  times;  in  him  of  all  Americans  the 
Union,  for  thirty  years  prior  to  the  eventful  1860,  was 
personified.  In  faults  and  merits  alike  he  was  so  great, 
and  he  produced  so  much  that  was  good  and  so  much 
that  was  vicious,  that  the  historian  may  well  be  per 
plexed  to  trace  the  blending  line.  This  warrior  first 
entered  office  with  an  easier  task  before  him  than  any 
of  his  predecessors,  and  twice  when  he  took  the  official 
oath  he  might  have  shaped  his  course  peacefully  to  the 
popular  predisposition,  which  was  to  reward  a  veteran 
soldier  with  the  highest  mark  of  honor.  Twice,  how 
ever,  as  we  have  seen,  did  he  surprise  expectation,  both 


290         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

by  the  vitality  of  his  rule  and  his  peculiar  aptitude  for 
fighting  out  some  new  political  policy.  He  fought 
well,  as  he  had  always  done,  and  was  as  pertinacious 
in  returning  to  the  attack  and  mortifying  the  foes  who 
had  wounded  his  friends.  Quarrels  and  bad  blood 
made  the  large  component  of  these  eight  years'  policy ; 
the  fight  of  factions  made  the  spoils  of  office,  for  the 
first  time,  a  national  principle ;  the  fight  with  the  Bank, 
originating,  most  likely,  in  personal  offence,  was  a  per 
sonal  one  to  the  close ;  and  but  for  his  personal  rupture 
with  Calhoun  one  may  well  doubt  whether  nullification 
would  ever  have  raised  its  reptile  head.  Jackson's  best 
act  was  to  trample  down  that  heresy,  though  the  snake 
was  only  scotched,  and  his  worst  was  to  debauch  the 
public  service.  In  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  his  example 
long  outlived  him.  But  most  pernicious  of  all,  in  quick 
results,  he  initiated  the  treacherous  policy  of  Mexican 
dismemberment  and  annexation  for  the  sake  of  slavery ; 
from  a  motive  pseudo-patriotic,  however,  to  preserve 
the  equilibrium  of  the  Union,  and  with  a  responsibility 
quite  indirect  for  the  worst  that  followed  after  he  had 
set  the  ball  in  motion.  As  for  the  rest,  his  foreign 
policy  was  brilliant  and  sagacious;  his  stand  on  the 
tariff  and  internal  improvements  judicious  for  the 
times ;  his  course  to  the  Indians,  though  harsh,  not  with 
out  justifying  reasons.  He  paid  off  the  national  debt, 
like  the  punctilious  planter  he  was,  who  abhorred  all 
debt,  public  and  private,  and  with  real  opportunity 
might  have  left  to  his  country  some  plan  for  disposing 
of  a  national  surplus  instead  of  leaving  himself  on  rec 
ord  as  a  censurer  of  all  plans.  Upon  his  financial 
policy  our  narrative  has  dwelt  already,  and  the  full 
effect  of  that  glorious  folly,  the  transfer  of  the  deposits, 
will  soon  be  shown.  With  all  his  fervent  zeal,  there 


JACKSON  AND  JEFFERSON         291 

were  limitations  to  his  theory  of  public  banking,  limi 
tations  to  his  theory  of  a  fraternal  Union. 


No  President  ever  ruled  these  United  States  in  times 
of  peace  with  a  personal  supremacy  so  absolute  as  the 
two  great  chieftains  of  our  Democracy,  Jackson  and 
Jefferson,  though  in  methods  and  character  they  were 
so  little  alike.  The  one  was  a  born  manager  of  men, 
the  other  a  stern  dictator ;  the  one  philanthropic  to  the 
socially  oppressed ;  the  other  a  hater  rather  of  the  social 
oppressor ;  each,  however,  influenced  by  a  love  of  coun 
try  which  was  a  ruling  passion,  by  constitutional  re 
straints  somewhat  independently  interpreted,  and,  in 
later  life  at  least,  by  an  unconscious  bias  to  the  side  of 
the  South  whenever  slavery  was  threatened  with  vio 
lence  by  northern  agitators.  This  last  in  Jefferson 
weakened  his  practical  efforts  in  the  anti-slavery  cause, 
though  he  was  anti-slavery  in  sentiment  to  the  end;  in 
Jackson,  who  thought  himself  no  worse  for  being  a 
master,  if  a  kind  one,  it  stimulated  the  determination 
to  make  his  section  strong  enough  to  hold  out  against 
the  abolitionists,  for  abolitionists  and  nullifiers  were  all 
hell-hounds  of  disunion.  Jefferson  had  gently  manip 
ulated  Congress ;  Jackson  ruled  in  defiance  of  it,  and  by 
arraying  the  people,  or  rather  a  party  majority  on  his 
side,  against  it,  until  the  tone  of  his  messages,  if  not 
really  insolent,  was  that  of  conscious  infallibility.  Con 
gress  is  elastic,  however,  and  easily  rallies,  being  nat 
urally  the  encroaching  power  under  our  co-ordinate  sys 
tem.  But  as  for  the  people,  the  danger  grew  that  their 
will  in  elections  would  be  fettered  by  machinery  and 
machine  managers.  In  these  years  the  Democracy 
made  rapid  strides,  and  the  nation,  too,  advanced  in 


292         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

power.  Self-confidence  increased,  and  a  domineering 
disposition.  There  was  a  vigorous  vulgarity  about 
this  administration  at  every  point,  resolution,  and  a 
passionate  love  of  danger.  And  yet  at  home,  factions 
and  mob  violence  were  always  on  the  increase;  and 
though  the  principles  of  national  institutions  and  of 
fundamental  authority  were  discussed  as  never  before 
nor  since,  there  never  was  a  time  short  of  civil  war 
when  lawlessness  gained  so  nearly  the  upper  hand  in 
the  community.  The  most  dangerous  infractions  of 
the  constitution  are  those  not  violent  enough  to  provoke 
the  governed  to  open  resistance,  and  of  such  there  were 
many.  Jackson's  school  of  philosophy  was  not  tolerant 
and  reconciling.  There  were  too  many  friends  to  re 
ward,  too  many  foes  to  punish.  Class  was  inflamed 
against  class,  the  poor  showed  their  teeth  at  the  rich; 
and  while  the  Union  was  constantly  held  up  for  rev 
erence,  and  even  idolatry,  the  joints  were  strained,  the 
fraternal  bonds  parted,  and  men  of  both  sections  began 
to  feel  themselves  less  unionists  at  heart  than  before. 
And  thus,  though  decked  out  with  glory,  did  Jackson's 
iron  rule  plough  long  furrows  in  the  back  of  the  repub 
lic  whose  scars  are  still  visible. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ADMINISTRATION   OF   MARTIN   VAN   BUREN. 

§1.  Period  of  Twenty-fifth  Congress.  March  4,  i837-March  3, 
J83Q. — §  II.  Period  of  Twenty-sixth  Congress.  March  4, 
i83Q-March  3,  1841. 

FINANCIAL  crash  and  widespread  disaster 
closely  succeeded  Jackson's  retirement  from 
office ;  and  Van  Buren,  his  cherished  successor 
in  office,  had  to  provide  some  means  for  replenishing 
an  empty  public  treasury.  The  new  doctrine  was  to 
place  the  general  government  in  all  its  deal 
ings  on  a  specie  basis  and  make  it  the  custo 
dian  in  its  own  vaults  of  its  own  funds.  This  doctrine 
of  the  government  its  own  depository,  which  the  new 
President's  message  for  the  first  time  unfolded,  was 
elaborated  in  a  report  which  accompanied  it  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Such  was  the  plan  of  the  "independent  treasury/'  as 
its  friends  called  it,  or,  as  more  commonly  styled,  of 
the  "sub-treasury."  It  was  simple,  natural,  and  easy 
to  comprehend ;  taking,  in  fact,  the  exact  diagonal  from 
the  forces  which  so  lately  were  opposed.  But  this  was 
an  innovation,  and  all  innovations  have  prejudice  to 
surmount,  and  that  most  formidable  of  all  forces,  the 
force  of  habit.  Trade  had  climbed  and  clustered  for  so 
many  years  about  the  tower  of  a  National  Bank  that  its 
now  prostrate  vines  felt  the  want  of  that  same  solid 
masonry  to  sustain  them.  Then,  again,  the  State  bank 


294         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

interest,  still  powerful,  hoped  to  regain  its  favors. 
Other  objections  occurred  at  once.  Would  not  an  in 
dependent  treasury  increase  instead  of  diminishing  the 
dangerous  power  of  the  Executive?  And  granting 
that  the  system  might  work  well  while  the  Union  spent 
its  whole  income,  paying  out  as  fast  as  it  received,  these 
were  still  surplus  years  of  revenue  with  the  crisis  once 
surmounted ;  and  with  ten  millions  at  least,  and  perhaps 
twice  and  thrice  or  even  four  times  that  amount,  of  the 
precious  metals  locked  up  idle  in  the  public  safes  a  busi 
ness  convulsion  was  certain ;  for  in  finance  to  hoard  is  to 
throw  into  disorder.  In  the  present  universal  depres 
sion  this  looked,  too,  like  a  direct  attack  on  the  whole 
banking  and  credit  system  of  the  country,  like  an  effort 
by  an  administration  whose  sincerity  was  not  greatly 
confided  in  to  subvert  all  banks  and  all  bank  circulation. 
The  solid  objection  to  the  new  proposal  lay,  however,  in 
its  incompleteness;  a  medicine  was  offered,  but  not  a 
panacea.  It  met  the  immediate  question  of  affording  a 
safe  place  for  the  public  deposits  and  might  develop  an 
exchange  system  practicable  enough  for  the  wants  of 
the  government ;  but  the  broader  question  of  a  safe  and 
uniform  national  currency  it  left  untouched,  uncured. 
From  this  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  Van  Buren  plan 
looked  like  a  selfish  abandonment  of  the  people's  ship 
in  distress.  Instead  of  helping  the  craft  to  weather 
the  gale  the  government  "took  the  long  boat." 

The  independent  treasury  idea  was  the  lasting  fruit 
of  this  administration,  and  to  Van  Buren  belongs  the 
credit  of  producing  it.  It  was  sound  and  excellent  so 
far  as  it  went,  and,  though  the  plan  helped  sink  the 
originator,  it  indicated  his  courage  and  capacity.  A 
persistent  opposer  of  banking  privileges,  the  thought 
germinated  early  in  his  mind;  and  while  he  consulted 


GOVERNOR  SEWARD  295 

others  he  was  dominant  in  giving  form  and  shape  to 
the  measure.  No  one  aided  in  embodying  the  idea  in 
legislation  so  much  as  his  friend  Silas  Wright,  the  in 
fluential  senator  from  Van  Buren's  own  State,  and  the 
purest  man  of  the  whole  Albany  regency. 


The  alliance  of  Seward,  Weed,  and  Greeley  was  a 
powerful  one  in  the  Empire  State  in  Whig  times  to 
contend  with  the  Albany  regency,  its  natural 
antagonist.      Their  talents   well  blended  to     1839-40. 
counteract  their  several  faults. 

Young  Seward  was  by  nature  humane  and  progres 
sive,  a  born  statesman  of  the  sanguine  and  speculative 
school  founded  by  Jefferson.  His  training  and  ante 
cedents,  indeed,  were  Jeffersonian ;  but  anti-Masonry 
brought  him  into  contact  with  John  Quincy  Adams  at 
an  impressionable  age,  and  Adams's  personal  example 
became  the  guiding  star  of  his  existence.  Seward  soon 
came  to  detest  slavery,  though  bearing  himself  like  a 
philosopher;  his  nature  was  genial  and  attractive,  and 
his  art  always  remarkable  in  avoiding  personal  collision 
under  whatever  provocation,  and  yet  wherever  placed 
he  did  not  fail  to  show  at  least  the  mettle  of  his  con 
viction.  He  disliked  pomp  and  ceremony,  and  it 
amused  him  in  these  early  years  to  see  how  common 
men  would  pass  him  by  and  single  out  some  man  in  the 
room  of  portly  figure  and  imposing  presence,  like 
Granger  or  Fillmore,  as  their  ideal  of  a  chief  magis 
trate.  A  generous  and  free  liver,  as  his  means  enabled 
him  to  be,  he  was  accustomed  to  spend  all  his  official 
salary  in  maintaining  his  station,  so  that  none  could  say 
that  he  made  money  in  public  employ.  But  while  above 
all  suspicion  of  greed  or  corruption,  a  foible  was  his  dis- 


296         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

regard  of  public  economies;  for,  like  a  true  disciple  of 
Adams,  he  inclined  strongly  to  grand  schemes  of  in 
ternal  improvement  which  the  State  was  to  prop  up, 
and  his  innate  tendencies  were  to  paternal  and  even 
prodigal  government.  This  desire  to  enrich  and  ben 
efit,  however,  was  founded  in  his  philosophy,  and  so 
was  his  optimism,  which  presented  always  the  bright 
side  of  things.  He  had  great  faith  and  forecast,  but  with 
somewhat  of  that  prophetic  conceit  which  among  fal 
lible  mortals  leads  in  some  momentous  crisis  to  a  false 
prediction.  Most  of  his  predictions  startled  by  their 
truth,  a  few  proved  false ;  but  the  line  between  prophecy 
and  policy  was  not  always  to  be  discerned  in  his  con 
duct  of  affairs,  for  his  worst  fears  were  expressed  in 
private  confidence,  while  he  seemed  always  to  lead  on 
the  people  from  hope  to  hope.  In  this  is  true  states 
manship,  and  Seward  never  forgot  in  the  sage  a  states 
man's  limitations  to  the  best  attainable  rather  than  the 
greatest  abstract  good. 

Seward' s  friend,  Thurlow  Weed,  was  of  a  coarser 
fibre,  but  resolute,  devoted  to  his  friends,  full  of  energy, 
persistent,  shrewd,  and  not  over-scrupulous,  a  man  of 
the  machine,  and  robust  in  his  partisanship  as  he 
was  in  physique.  Such  men  are  indigenous  to  Amer 
ican  politics,  where  the  next  power  to  the  throne  is  the 
power  behind  it,  and  every  great  statesman  needs  his 
political  manager  to  keep  him  in  relation  with  his  con 
stituents.  The  political  manager  of  these  days  was 
the  journalist,  whose  reward  came  in  the  growth  of  his 
subscription-list  and  such  rich  jobs  as  that  of  the  public 
printing.  It  was  Weed  who  discovered  Horace  Gree- 
ley,  a  poor  young  printer  and  unthrifty  editor,  in  the 
great  city,  and  induced  him  to  publish  in  Albany  a 
Whig  paper  for  the  State  campaign  of  1838  styled  the 


WEED  AND  GREELEY  297 

Jcffcrsonian.  The  admirable  quality  of  Greeley's  pen- 
work  had  attracted  the  notice  of  the  shrewd  party  man 
ager.  Greeley's  paper  did  well  its  part  towards  the 
election  of  Seward,  and  then  Greeley  returned  to  his 
crust  and  his  attic.  A  young  flaxen-haired  youth, 
stooping,  near-sighted,  ill-dressed,  and  ill  at  ease  in  pol 
ished  company,  Greeley  was  a  born  journalist,  of  the 
kind  to  impress  the  public  by  his  sincere  and  fervent 
convictions.  Though  hungering  for  some  one  of  those 
snug  salaried  places  which  Seward  now  dispensed,  but 
which  he  was  too  proud  to  ask  for,  he  reaped  the  re 
wards  of  his  new  alliance  in  the  field  overlooked  by 
many  an  aspirant — that  which  he  was  most  fit  for. 
Being  a  man  of  crotchets  and  philanthropic  blunders, 
Greeley,  open  and  susceptible  as  the  day,  embraced  each 
new  "ism"  which  promised  to  regenerate  mankind.  He 
was  no  practical  administrator,  and  hence,  superior  as 
he  was  to  Weed  in  mental  calibre  and  loftiness  of  pur 
pose,  he  could  no  more  have  filled  Weed's  place  in  pol 
itics  than  Weed  could  have  filled  his  own. 


Van  Buren's  personal  character  and  administration 
may  be  summed  up  briefly.  He  was  the  first  of  Amer 
ican  Presidents  during  nearly  half  a  century  whose 
lineage  was  Dutch  instead  of  British;  the  first,  more 
over,  who  was  not  born  a  British  subject,  but  on  free 
American  soil.  But  what  was  of  more  immediate  con 
sequence,  Van  Buren  was  the  typical  New  Yorker  of 
public  life  and  the  first  President  of  this  Union  from 
that  great  middle  section  where  politics  have  responded 
most  to  practical  management. 

When  in  high  station  Van  Buren  tried  to  dispel  the 
impression  that  he  was  a  man  of  intrigue ;  but  the  more 


298         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

he  tried,  the  more  of  an  intriguer  he  was  thought  to  be. 
Though  subtle  rather  than  strong,  he  certainly  had  tal 
ents  far  beyond  the  average  of  public  men,  not  as  a 
political  organizer  only,  but  in  the  higher  range  of 
statesmanship.  He  was  a  good  diplomatist,  a  fair  ad 
ministrator  ;  his  democracy,  albeit  a  little  servile  to  the 
many,  was  wholesome  and  robust.  He  steered  between 
North  and  South  on  irritating  subjects  better  than  he 
received  credit  for  doing.  As  President,  Van  Buren 
was  still  detestable,  in  the  use  of  the  public  patronage 
and  showed  corrupt  tendencies;  but  he  should  be  cred 
ited  with  moral  courage  and  sagacity  in  the  leading 
measure  by  which  his  administration  is  distinguished. 
The  sub-treasury  plan,  the  final  divorce  of  public  and 
private  finances,  was  his  own;  he  brought  his  party  to 
that  policy  and  shared  a  national  defeat  rather  than  sur 
render  it.  This  is  enough  to  stamp  him  as  a  states 
man.  Then,  again,  he  resisted  schemes  for  annexing 
Texas  in  the  interest  of  slavery. 

Van  Buren  in  personal  appearance  was  below  the 
middle  height  and  inclined  to  corpulence.  The  fa 
miliar  names  "Matty"  and  "Little  Van"  were  not  ill 
bestowed  upon  him,  whether  in  ridicule  or  admiration. 
His  blue  eye  was  quick  and  searching ;  his  hair,  turned 
to  gray,  stood  crisply  out  on  both  sides  of  his  broad 
forehead ;  and,  with  his  bald  head  and  handsome  coun 
tenance,  he  had  a  decidedly  English  look,  as  of  one  pros 
perous,  benevolent,  shrewd,  an  alert  looker  upon  the 
busy  world  about  him,  satisfied  with  himself,  but  withal 
somewhat  cynical  of  men  and  their  motives.  Had  he 
been  given  more  to  field  sports  and  fox-hunting,  one 
might  think  of  him  as  an  American  Lord  Palmerston, 
such  was  his  air  of  bright  and  breezy  good  humor  and 


VAN  BUREN'S  CHARACTER    299 

his  princely  affectation.  He  valued  the  philosophic 
temper  of  Franklin  and  Madison,  and  made  much  com 
modity  of  his  little  thoughtful  civilities.  To  Madison 
he  has  sometimes  been  likened  for  calmness,  discretion, 
gentle  manners,  and  the  remarkable  facility  of  avoiding 
personal  quarrels.  That  parallel  might  be  drawn  out 
further ;  for  Madison  and  Van  Buren  each  succeeded  a 
remarkable  political  leader,  whose  personal  friendship 
advanced  him;  each  had  held  the  portfolio  of  State; 
each  suffered,  too,  by  the  inevitable  contrast  with  a 
predecessor  who  was  taller  in  every  sense;  each  was 
overtaken  by  a  blinding  storm  which  was  stirred  before 
his  coming;  and  while  neither  retired  from  the  Presi 
dential  office  with  the  fame  he  had  hoped  for,  both  lived 
long  enough  to  take  a  calm  retrospect,  and  see  in  trou 
blesome  times  that  the  people  were  better  instead  of 
worse  for  the  policy  each  had  pursued.  But  here  the 
parallel  must  end.  Madison  was  as  far  above  the  sus 
picion  of  hypocrisy  or  servility  as  Van  Buren  was 
made  opprobrious  by  it.  His  mild  and  unobtrusive 
consideration  for  others  was  of  a  very  different  flavor 
from  Van  Buren's  imperturbable  vivacity  which 
showed  the  desire  to  half  conceal,  or  his  cautious  ex 
pression  of  views,  feeling  the  way  with  subtle  reserva 
tions.  Van  Buren  was  bolder,  as  well  as  more  selfish, 
in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  Madison,  indeed,  was  rather 
a  timid  Executive,  having  been  little  trained  to  take  re 
sponsibility ;  but  for  patriotic  purpose  he  was  more 
trustworthy  and  more  trusted ;  and,  in  fact,  having  been 
re-elected  to  office,  he  carried  the  country  through  the 
crisis  for  which  men  had  reproached  his  party,  and  re 
tired  victorious.  But  for  Van  Buren,  victory,  even 
such  as  his  policy  was  capable  of  winning,  had  to  be 


300         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

postponed;  for,  to  begin  with,  the  people  mistrusted 
his  sincerity  and  feared  that  his  sub-treasury  was  the 
blind  for  some  deeper  scheme.  The  name  of  dema 
gogue  long  adhered  to  him,  though  time  brought  a  bet 
ter  appreciation  of  his  genuine  merit. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON. 

Period  of  Twenty-Seventh   Congress.      March  4,    i84i-April   4, 
1841. 

HERE, as  the  web  began  to  weave,  the  wheel  was 
broken.  The  great  Whig  victory  of  1840  lost 
its  force.  Harrison,  never  robust  of  body, 
had  been  borne  into  the  vale  of  years  by  temperance 
and  the  routine  of  mild  activity.  He  had  not  the  de 
fiant  mettle,  the  indomitable  energy,  the  pride 
of  will,  of  that  other  old  soldier,  to  whose 
spoils  policy  he  fell  the  first  victim.  The  incessant 
strain  of  public  care,  consequent  upon  a  campaign  of 
unparalleled  excitement  and  the  fatigues  of  his  trium 
phant  journey,  agitated  and  wore  him  down  faster  than 
they  could  conceive  who  drained  his  vitality  so  freely. 
Generous  and  hospitable,  he  indulged  his  friends  to  his 
own  destruction.  His  wife  had  not  yet  joined  him, 
and  the  White  House  life  was  homeless.  Busy  from 
sunrise  until  nearly  midnight  with  company  and  affairs, 
except  for  an  hour  each  day  which  he  passed  with  his 
cabinet,  he  had  neither  privacy  nor  leisure.  His  first 
purchase  as  chief  ruler  was  a  Bible  and  prayer-book; 
and  after  his  daily  devotions  he  would  take  a  morning 
walk,  often  bringing  back  some  old  friend  to  breakfast 
with  him.  Careless  exposure  one  morning  brought  on 
a  chill  which  ran  into  pneumonia  and  a  profuse  diar 
rhoea  ;  his  feeble  frame  succumbed,  and  he  died  calmly 
on  the  4th  of  April,  one  month  from  the  date  of  his 


302         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

inauguration.  In  his  last  incoherent  utterance  he 
seemed  to  be  enjoining  upon  another  the  trust  which 
slipped  from  his  ghostly  grasp :  "Sir,  I  wish  you  to  un 
derstand  the  true  principles  of  the  government ;  I  wish 
them  carried  out;  I  ask  nothing  more." 

This  was  the  first  time  that  death  had  invaded  the 
White  House  or  smote  the  chief  of  the  people,  and  so 
sudden  was  the  shock  that  the  nation  seemed  stunned 
by  this  calamity.  Harrison  was  loved  by  all  the  people, 
and  even  party  opponents  acknowledged  his  benev 
olence  and  high  purpose.  The  tokens  of  national  sor 
row  and  respect  were  universal.  At  the  capital  the 
obsequies  of  the  dead  President,  hastily  arranged,  were 
as  splendid  as  so  quiet  a  season  would  permit  in  that 
pilgrim  city,  and  pageants  followed  in  more  populous 
places  to  pay  imaginary  honors.  The  7th  of  April  was 
the  day  of  the  funeral.  The  north  portico  of  the  man 
sion  was  hung  with  unaccustomed  black.  They  who 
had  hustled  in  its  halls  with  headlong  zeal  a  few  days 
before  trod  gently  and  spoke  in  whispers.  The  body, 
in  its  leaden  casket,  was  taken  from  the  East  Room 
where  it  had  lain  in  state  on  a  bier  heaped  with  flowers ; 
it  was  placed  in  an  open  funeral  car,  which  stood  at 
the  north  portico,  covered  with  black  velvet  and  drawn 
by  six  white  horses,  each  with  its  colored  groom.  A 
wailing  of  trumpets  arose,  inexpressibly  mournful,  and 
a  beating  of  muffled  drums,  as  the  military  escort  began 
its  march  down  the  avenue  with  arms  reversed.  The 
sky  was  overcast,  and  only  a  stray  sunbeam  from  the 
clouds  would  shine  upon  the  sable  car  with  its  nod 
ding  plumes  as  the  procession  moved  eastward  in  slow 
array,  minute-guns  firing.  Rounding  the  deserted  Cap 
itol,  whose  eastern  steps,  where  Harrison  so  lately 
stood,  led  upward,  as  a  mourner  might  fancy,  like 


DEATH  OF  HARRISON  303 

Jacob's  ladder,  it  approached  and  entered  the  Congres 
sional  burying  ground.  Here  the  present  obsequies 
ended.  The  last  expression  of  Harrison's  waxen  face 
was  gentle  and  serene. 

Harrison  died  honorably  poor,  as  became  his  career. 
Congress,  when  it  met,  made  an  appropriation  for  his 
funeral  expenses,  and  voted  a  year's  salary  to  his 
widow.  Here  and  in  many  States  the  legislatures  tes 
tified  respect  for  his  memory.  At  the  request  of  Cin 
cinnati  friends,  the  late  President's  remains  were  re 
moved  in  the  summer  to  his  family  home;  and  at  North 
Bend,  near  the  Ohio's  bank,  the  good  gray  head  was 
laid  quietly  to  rest. 


"Heaven,"  says  Wise,  of  Virginia,  Alluding,  long 
years  after,  to  Harrison's  death,  "saved  him  from  the 
fate  of  Actseon;  for,  had  he  lived  until  Congress  met, 
he  would  have  been  devoured  by  the  divided  pack  of  his 
own  dogs."  The  figure  is  a  striking  one,  but  not  ap 
propriate.  The  new  President  had  his  leash  well  in 
hand;  they  of  the  pack  that  hunted  were  scenting  the 
game ;  the  few  that  barked  could  not  have  harmed  him. 
Harrison  was  strong  without  Virginia,  his  native  State, 
and  his  rock  of  strength  was  the  solid  confidence  of  the 
Union.  The  people's  candidate  in  the  critical  times  at 
hand  would  have  proved  himself,  had  he  lived,  the 
people's  friend.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  was 
trained  a  civilian  not  less  than  a  soldier ;  a  party  man, 
though  a  moderate  one,  and  by  no  means  incompetent 
to  his  task,  which  was  to  conciliate  confidence.  The 
country  has  had  abler  men  than  Harrison,  but  few 
whose  death,  coming  when  it  did,  was  in  so  real  a  sense 
a  public  calamity. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  TYLER. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-seventh  Congress.  April  4,  i84i-March 
3,  1843. — §  II.  Period  of  Twenty-eighth  Congress.  March  4, 
i843-March  3,  1845. 

THE  heir-apparent  of  blood  royal  may  come 
some  day  to  the  throne,  and  royal  title  itself 
turns  by  premeditation  upon  the  accidents  of 
human  life;  but  no  Vice-President  of  the  United  States 
ever  was  or  ever  will  be  voted  for  in  a  genuine  expecta- 
l841       tion  that  he  will  be  more  than  a  Vice-Presi- 
April-     dent  while  the  four  years  last. 
But  now  the  contingency  had  happened,  and,  for  the 
first  time,  Heaven's  stroke  had  fallen  on  the  highest  in 
cumbent  of  this  great  Republic  as  though  he  had  been 
the  humblest  of  the  people.     The  supreme  executive 
title  devolved  in  a  moment  without  the  intervention  of 
a  voice  or  vote.      John  Tyler  ruled  in  the  place  of 
the  good  Harrison.     Who  is  John  Tyler  ?  it  was  asked. 
And  what  is  the  status  of  one  who  succeeds  to  the  va 
cant  place  under  such  circumstances?     For  all  were 
stunned  and  bewildered  in  this  first  shock  of  affliction. 
The  successful  Whigs  could  not  realize  at  once  the 
magnitude  of  their  loss.     But  it  was  true  that  they  had 
conquered  by  the  uncertain  sign  of  promising  some 
change  for  the  better;  and  they  had  really  hung  the 
whole  framework  of  their  principles  upon  the  thread  of 
a  single  human  life,  and  that  a  frail  one ;  they  had  sup- 


TYLER'S  PAST  RECORD  305 

posed,  and  with  reason,  that  Harrison's  judgment 
would  accord  with  the  common  sense  of  the  situation. 
It  was  now  time  to  scrutinize  the  record  of  John  Tyler 
as  it  had  not  been  scrutinized  before.  This  youngest  of 
all  Presidents  ever  to  that  date  seated  in  office,  fifty-one 
years  of  age  when  he  took  up  his  abode  at  the  White 
House,  was  in  no  sense  a  national  man  nor  even  a  sound 
Whig.  Taken  upon  his  antecedents,  he  was  of  those 
who  skirt  the  border-line  of  parties  close  enough  to 
tempt  either  to  bid  for  him  when  in  a  strait.  By  his 
own  statement  his  course  had  been  "almost  that  of  a 
neutral"  up  to  the  time  when  he  took  his  seat  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  though  constantly  in  the  public 
service  from  the  time  of  turning  his  majority,  whether 
as  legislator,  Congressman,  or  governor  of  his  native 
State.  But  he  voted  in  the  Senate  as  an  independent 
Democrat;  and  Clay  himself  in  1841  spoke  bitterly  of 
their  twenty  years  of  intimate  friendship,  during  thir 
teen  years  of  which  they  had  never  voted  together  on  a 
single  question  of  principle. 

In  principle,  to  speak  truly,  Tyler  was  consistent  only 
in  being  for  State  rights  and  a  southern  man  to  the 
core.  Though  gifted  with  tact,  courtly  manners,  and 
a  pleasing  temper,  he  had  within  him  the  impetuous 
spirit  of  a  slave-driver.  Northern  needs  and  northern 
society  he  did  not  and  could  not  comprehend ;  his  sym 
pathies  were  not  national,  but  to  bend  the  nation  to  the 
ambition  of  his  section.  He  was  a  Virginian  of  the 
later  type,  prouder  of  his  State  than  the  Union.  "Do 
you  believe,"  asked  he,  when  the  Missouri  question  was 
under  debate,  "that  southern  bayonets  will  ever  be 
plunged  in  southern  hearts?"  In  that  debate  he  took 
the  extreme  ground,  for  so  early  a  day,  that  Congress 
had  no  constitutional  right  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the 


306         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

territories;  and  we  have  already  seen  him  in  1833,  when 
South  Carolina  was  in  revolt,  casting  his  solitary  vote  in 
the  Senate  against  the  bill  for  enforcing  the  supremacy 
of  the  Union.  Jackson's  heroic  attitude  on  this  latter 
occasion,  rather  than  his  interference  with  the  National 
Bank,  was  what  estranged  Tyler  from  the  Democratic 
party.  Being  a  fluent  and  decidedly  emotional  writer 
and  speaker,  he  was  quite  given  to  asseveration.  His 
conscience,  according  to  his  own  description,  was  ex 
ceedingly  tender ;  but  what  seemed  stranger  still,  it  was 
sensitive  to  the  trivialities  of  a  dispute,  while  callous 
concerning  the  deeper  moralities  involved.  It  was  a 
conscience  of  overburdened  ingenuity,  like  Hogarth's 
machine  for  drawing  the  cork  from  a  bottle.  Thus, 
Tyler  deplored  the  existence  of  slavery,  but  since  it  had 
been  planted  here  without  his  fault  he  would  tolerate  no 
interference  with  it ;  he  thought  nullification  wrong,  but 
it  was  a  greater  wrong  to  coerce  a  nullifying  State; 
Benton's  expunging  resolution  he  utterly  abhorred,  not 
in  the  sense  that  the  original  censure  of  the  President 
ought  to  stand,  but  because  it  was  perjury,  blasphemy, 
or  some  other  terrible  moral  enormity  for  him  to  vote 
to  expunge  when  the  constitution  expressly  declared 
that  "each  house  shall  keep  a  journal."  Such  was  the 
sacrificial  disposition  which  statesmen  showed  to  throw 
themselves  under  the  wheels  of  that  great  Juggernaut 
of  federal  compact ;  perish  the  heavens,  sooner  than  per 
mit  the  slightest  crack  in  the  precious  porcelain  be 
queathed  by  our  fathers.  In  fact,  through  Tyler's 
whole  political  career  to  this  point  one  may  diccern  the 
habit  of  moving  upon  fine  and  subtle  distinctions,  such 
as  a  special  pleader  delights  in,  a  squirrel-like  pro 
pensity  to  leap  from  tree  to  tree  without  touching  the 
ground.  Like  the  squirrel's  bushy  tail,  he  carried  his 


SLAVERY  AND  FREEDOM          307 

record  behind  him;  and  one  agony  of  his  conscience 
was  to  reconcile  his  later  acts  with  his  earlier,  regard 
less  of  the  saying  that  only  simpletons  never  change 
their  opinions. 


It  was  high  time  to  dissipate  that  pleasing  spectral 
illusion  that  slavery  was  merely  local  in  its  influence, 
and  concerned  no  State  outside  the  southern 
galaxy.  As  a  social  principle,  in  fact, 
slavery  was  as  contagious  as  freedom,  and  possessed 
the  same  power  of  expansion.  Already  had  this  in 
stitution  brought  our  federal  government  into  direct 
collision  with  Great  Britain  and  other  European 
countries  which  had  enlisted  in  the  moral  crusade; 
it  struggled  to  preoccupy  the  virgin  soil  of  national 
territory  in  place  of  freedom;  it  contended  for  the 
balance  of  national  power;  and  the  oldest  and 
weightiest  States  of  the  Union  were  at  this  moment 
in  serious  controversy  over  the  obligation  which  free 
dom  owed  to  rivet  the  chains  of  bondage.  This  last 
phase  of  the  conflict  deserves  here  a  passing  notice. 
Slaveholders  claimed  the  right  to  retake  such  of  their 
runaways  as  might  have  escaped  into  a  free  State ;  but 
did  this  compel  free  States  to  play  the  hound  for  the 
master,  or  to  deprive  free  colored  men  of  their  liberty 
in  a  free  jurisdiction,  or  to  send  their  own  white  citi 
zens  to  slave  soil  to  suffer  the  vengeance  of  certain 
death,  whose  worst  offence,  even  had  they  committed 
any,  was  to  help  a  poor  fellow-creature  to  become  his 
own  master,  as  God  gave  him  the  natural  right?  It 
was  impossible  that  North  and  South  in  this  era  should 
harmonize  on  these  points  or  even  discuss  them  dispas 
sionately;  and  what  should  impress  posterity  is,  that 


308         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

slavery  asked  more  of  the  Union,  far  more,  than  to  be 
left  alone,  to  use  its  own  municipal  authority  to  sustain 
its  abhorred  system.  In  these  very  years  Governor 
Seward,  of  New  York,  was  still  in  correspondence  with 
southern  State  executives  over  the  surrender  of  white 
citizens  of  the  North  as  fugitives  from  justice  on  the 
charge  of  stealing  slaves ;  Georgia  coupled  a  like  requi 
sition  of  her  own  to  that  from  Virginia,  which  the 
Empire  State  refused  to  grant;  and  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina  then  combined  to  pass  local  laws,  by  way  of 
retaliation,  which  exposed  all  New  York  vessels  arriv 
ing  in  their  ports  to  the  ignominy  of  search  and  the 
imprisonment  of  colored  seamen.  On  the  surrender, 
too,  of  fugitive  slaves  there  was  angry  collision  between 
free  and  slave  States. 


The  single-term  theory  of  the  Presidential  office  did 
not  originate,  as  many  have  supposed,  with  the  De 
mocracy.  It  was  a  Whig  theory,  and  the 
theory  above  all  others,  if  not  the  only  one, 
to  which  Harrison  in  his  great  campaign  had  commit 
ted  himself ;  the  theory  which  Tyler,  too,  then  indorsed 
with  a  glittering  and  specious  warmth  of  sentiment. 
By  this  early  commitment  the  Whig  hero  meant  to 
strengthen  his  protest  against  Jacksonian  tendencies  to 
autocratic  dominion;  but  more  than  that  he  meant  to 
assuage  the  secret  bitterness  of  party  leaders  outranking 
him  in  point  of  public  service  who  were  loyally  fighting 
his  battle.  Before  the  Whigs  came  into  power,  every 
President,  of  whatever  politics,  had  stood  for  his  sec 
ond  term,  and  under  him,  necessarily,  the  party  failed 
or  maintained  its  ground.  This  appeal  to  the  people 
midway  in  one's  eight  years'  service,  for  approval  or 


SINGLE-TERM  THEORY  309 

disapproval,  Jefferson  had  highly  commended  in  prac 
tice.  But  the  Democrats  presently  borrowed  this  Whig 
lightning  for  their  own  purpose,  and  adopted  the  one- 
term  maxim,  in  real  effect,  as  a  sort  of  corollary  to  the 
spoils  maxim  of  rotation  in  office,  and  because,  in  truth, 
after  Jackson's  death,  no  one  led  them  conspicuous 
above  all  others. 

There  is  very  little,  in  plain  truth,  to  commend  such 
a  maxim  apart  from  the  special  circumstances  to  which 
it  may  apply.  Popular  experience  still  favors  a  second 
term  where  good  purposes  are  to  be  carried  to  a  fuller 
fruition  and  the  Executive  who  returns  to  the  polls  is 
trusted.  The  critic  of  our  constitution  on  this  point 
can  only  regret  that  the  written  law  fixes  no  limit,  but 
trusts  to  precedent  alone  and  the  common  jealousy, 
that  the  second  term  shall  be  the  last.  As  for  Tyler's 
eager  prevarication  on  this  point  we  may  treat  it  lightly, 
for  an  expectant  estate  differs  from  a  reversion ;  but  his 
grave  blunder  was  in  not  better  apprehending  that  true 
policy,  if  not  honor,  dictated  that  he  should  follow 
closely  on  the  lines  his  dead  leader  had  marked  and 
forego  ambitious  aspirations  which  there  was  not  one 
chance  in  a  hundred  for  gratifying.  First  in  striking 
out  to  be  re-elected,  next  in  assuming  a  co-ordinate 
power  to  legislate  against  the  will  of  Congress,  Tyler 
defiled  Harrison's  sepulchre,  and  after  committing  him 
self  to  Whig  ideas  acted  like  the  stubbornest  of  Jack- 
sonians.  Jackson  himself  had  not  vetoed  party  meas 
ures  without  a  keen  regard  to  good  policy  and  the 
party  welfare.  No  one  who  knew  John  Tyler  believed 
that  his  course  was  ruled  by  a  sensitive  conscience,  no 
one  took  his  written  reasons  for  the  true  and  only  ones. 
His  temper  was  fanned  into  a  flame,  his  vanity  dazzled, 
his  good-nature  abused  by  the  clique  about  him  until  the 


310         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

giant-killer  fancied  himself  growing  into  a  giant  him 
self.  To  kill  Clay  and  be  elected  for  another  term  was 
the  gravitating  law  of  this  whole  unprincipled  admin 
istration. 

For  the  first  time  in  American  history  a  President 
deserted  the  party  which  elected  him,  and  after  failing 
signally  to  recruit  a  party  of  his  own  marched  over  to 
the  enemy.  Consequently,  to  "Tylerize"  has  been  a 
word  of  reproach  in  our  politics  ever  since.  His  excuse 
was  that  the  Whigs  would  not  support  his  measures; 
but  his  duty  was  to  support  theirs,  and  the  more  so, 
since  accident  gave  him  an  authority  to  which  they 
never  meant  to  exalt  him.  The  Whigs  soon  saw  the 
ghost  he  was  pursuing.  Unseduced  by  the  patronage 
he  could  offer,  they  rallied  round  Clay  as  though  to 
atone  for  their  former  neglect,  and  the  Whig  press 
throughout  the  Union  ran  up  the  Clay  flag  when  the 
peerless  Senator  retired  from  Congress. 

But  the  volatile  Virginian  had  already  placed  a  fire 
brand  behind  each  camp  which  would  soon  force  par 
ties  from  their  position.  That  firebrand  was  the  Texas 
slaveholders'  annexation.  Abhorrent  as  the  whole 
scheme  had  been  to  North  and  West,  and  the  great  ma 
jority,  indeed,  of  our  population,  it  drew  the  sympathy, 
active  or  inert,  of  a  large  fraction  of  the  South,  whose 
institution  felt  more  and  more  the  need  of  some  new 
guaranty  against  the  assaults  of  the  abolitionists.  To 
our  planters  this  union  of  Texas  with  the  United  States 
seemed  natural,  like  the  commingling  of  kindred  drops 
of  water,  for  this  colony  was  of  their  own  planting;  it 
was  Tennessee  and  our  States  on  the  gulf  that  con 
quered  the  Mexican  army  at  San  Jacinto.  But  natural 
gravitation  would  not  have  absorbed  Texas  into  the 
American  Union  in  fifty  years;  for  annexation  meant 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH       311 

sectional  and  not  national  advantage  in  this  age,  and  the 
bitterest  heartburning. 

The  effort  had  been  made  to  infect  the  whole  country 
with  this  Texas  fever  and  it  had  failed.  There  was  no 
sanction  from  Congress,  no  favorable  expression  of 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  annexation;  the  whole 
movement  of  the  Tyler  guard  in  that  direction  was 
secret  and  stealthy,  like  a  night-march. 


The  Democratic  conventions  of  1844,  one  of  which 
nominated  James  K.  Polk,  and  the  other  John  Tyler, 
are  memorable  for  the  transmission  of  their  proceedings 
by  electric  telegraph.  Congress  having  lately  appro 
priated  thirty  thousand  dollars  to  test  Morse's  inven 
tion,  a  wire  was  run  between  Washington  and  Balti 
more,  and  communication  fully  opened  three  days  be 
fore.  Messages  of  congratulation  had  sped  by  this  oc 
cult  messenger,  but  the  first  practical  use  of  the  spark 
was  to  give  Congress  the  news  of  these  two  conventions. 
Every  half-hour  the  strange  little  machine  at  the  east 
end  of  the  Capitol  reported  the  progress  of  meetings 
held  forty  miles  away,  and  written  bulletins  posted  up 
on  the  wall  of  the  rotunda  gave  quick  intelligence  of  the 
news.  Silas  Wright  was  the  first  of  mortal  men  to 
receive  and  decline  a  nomination  by  electric  telegraph,* 
and  the  event  had  its  public  bearing  on  affairs.  A  new 
social  force  was  born  of  the  nineteenth  century, — the 
dissemination  and  collection  of  news  on  the  instant. 
Jove's  own  messenger  sped  from  this  date  for  mankind. 
By  another  year  plans  were  developed  for  extending 
the  electric  wires  to  New  York  and  more  distant  points, 
making  great  changes  in  the  modes  of  journalism  and 
*  For  Vice-President  upon  the  Polk  ticket. 


312         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

business,  and  already  were  predicted  electric  lights, 
electric  signals,  and  electric  fire-alarms  as  future  adap 
tations  of  this  most  magical  and  mysterious  of  natural 
agents. 


When  the  Texas  joint  resolution  came  back  to  the 
House  with  the  Senate  amendment  tacked  to  it,  con 
science  Whigs  made  a  last  effort  to  load  down  the 
whole  subject  till  the  session  expired.  But  the  Benton 
alternative  made  the  bill  all  the  more  palatable  to  north 
ern  and  western  Democrats,  and  the  House  quickly  con 
curred  by  a  larger  majority  than  the  measure  had  com 
manded  in  its  original  form.  On  the  last  day  of  Feb 
ruary,  at  sunset,  both  Houses  had  taken  final  action, 

and  within  twenty- four  hours  President  Tyler 
Mar?h4'r-3.  affixed  his  approval.       A  hundred  guns  from 

the  Capitol  announced  the  success  of  Texas 
annexation ;  but  many  a  bloodier  salute  was  fired  before 
that  success  proved  substantial. 

To  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  meaning  of  this  joint 
resolution.  It  not  only  consented  to  the  erection  of 
Texas  into  a  State  for  admission  into  the  Union  with 
a  republican  form  of  government,  but  pledged  the 
faith  of  the  United  States  to  permit  new  States  to  be 
formed  from  that  jurisdiction  not  exceeding  four,  be 
sides  Texas,  should  Texas  assent  to  it,  and  to  admit 
these  additional  States  into  the  Union  hereafter  with  or 
without  slavery,  as  the  people  of  each  State  might  pre 
fer,  if  formed  below  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  of 
36°  30',  but  if  formed  above  that  line,  without  slavery 
at  all.  The  tiger  in  the  jungle  of  this  fair  territory 
was  the  adjustment  of  boundaries  with  Mexico ;  but  we 
adopted  Texas  and  her  circumstances  together,  and  dis- 


TEXAS  ANNEXATION  313 

tinctly  assumed  that  difficult  function.  Any  constitu 
tion  formed  by  the  people  of  Texas  was  to  be  laid  be 
fore  Congress  for  its  final  action  by  the  first  of  January 
next.  Such  was  the  first  and  original  branch  of  this 
joint  resolution,  embracing  a  consent  under  conditions 
given  in  advance,  which  the  President  might  submit  to 
the  republic  of  Texas  by  way  of  an  offer  from  the 
United  States  for  immediate  acceptance.  But  now,  by 
force  of  the  Benton  alternative,  the  President  might  at 
his  discretion  negotiate  with  Texas  clean  terms  of  ad 
mission  and  submit  the  results  hereafter. 

Only  three  days  were  left  to  round  out  Tyler's  offi 
cial  term.  The  second  thought  of  Congress  had  appar 
ently  been  to  commit  this  whole  business,  with  its  dread 
responsibilities,  to  the  incoming  President,  whose  sober 
reticence  was  confided  in.  Polk  had  already  pledged 
himself  to  "immediate  reannexation,"  but  this  was  a 
question  of  methods,  and  even  Jacksonians  disliked  to 
give  Tyler  credit  for  anything.  Benton  and  the  Van 
Burenites  had  a  last  hope  that  the  second  alternative 
would  be  chosen,  and,  in  fact,  Benton  afterwards  as 
serted  that  Polk  privately  promised  to  choose  it.  But 
Tyler  was  too  slippery,  too  intent  upon  the  prize  of  his 
calling,  to  be  stripped  thus  of  his  glory.  He  improved 
the  last  hours  of  his  opportunity,  and  with  Calhoun,  it 
appears,  to  second  him.  The  discretion  given  under 
the  resolve  he  at  once  exercised  himself;  he  chose  the 
first  alternative,  which  was  what  zealous  annexationists 
wanted,  and  invited  Texas  to  accept  the  conditions  and 
enter  without  further  transactions.  Polk,  perhaps,  was 
willing  to  escape  so  easily  the  dilemma  which  the  Dem 
ocrats  had  arranged  for  him.  He  put  upon  this  pred 
ecessor  the  odium  of  annexing  Texas  by  the  surest  but 
most  outrageous  means,  and  Tyler,  in  return,  put  upon 


314         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Polk  the  odium  of  handling  consequences  so  that  war 
with  Mexico  followed.  On  Monday,  the  last  day  of 
his  term,  and  the  same  day  that  he  vacated  the  White 
House,  Tyler  took  the  responsibility  without  a  qualm, 
by  despatching  a  nephew,  who  spurred  off  with  hot 
speed,  bearing  with  him  the  official  despatches  which 
tendered  to  the  lone  star  republic  the  proposal  of  the 
United  States  for  immediate  union. 


John  Tyler,  as  the  reader  will  infer,  had  far  more 
talent,  as  well  as  independence,  than  the  Whigs  had 
credited  him  with;  and  a  disposition,  moreover,  which 
was  hurtful  enough  when  once  astray,  to  occupy  the 
full  advantage  of  his  strange  opportunity.  As  a  states 
man  and  administrator  he  was  much  above  the  average, 
having  industry,  persistency,  zeal  to  carry  his  point, 
and  a  light  touch  and  fertility  in  resources  which  were 
worthy  of  nobler  achievements.  Like  the  immortal 
Virginians  in  whose  galaxy  he  wished  to  be  set,  he 
was  a  thrifty  and  economical  manager  in  affairs;  he 
scrutinized  closely  the  public  expenditures,  and  held 
public  agents  to  strict  account. 

Tyler's  prime  preserved  to  him  a  youthful  aspect. 
He  had  a  fresh  complexion  and  an  animated  face,  was 
fair  and  delicate  to  look  upon,  and  a  favorite  with 
women.  Tall  and  slender,  standing  six  feet  high,  with 
silky  brown  hair  which  thinned  out  slowly,  a  high, 
retreating  forehead,  facile  and  expressive  blue  eyes,  a 
prominent  beak  of  Roman  model,  a  small  and  firm-set 
mouth,  and  a  delicate  chin,  he  had  an  air  about  him  of 
patrician  polish  and  high  breeding.  He  dressed  well, 
and  his  plaited  shirt-front  was  adorned  with  a  costly 
pin.  His  general  impression  was  graceful  and  pleas- 


TYLER'S  CHARACTER  315 

ing  rather  than  strong;  in  his  mien  was  something 
melodramatic,  as  though  he  either  felt  or  exaggerated 
for  effect  beyond  the  common  range  of  emotion.  He 
was  genial,  and  sometimes  hilarious;  prided  himself 
much  upon  elegant  hospitality  and  his  skill  in  smooth 
ing  difficulties.  He  could  entertain  happily.  He  had 
a  smile,  a  silvery  voice,  a  flattering  address ;  he  seldom 
quarrelled  openly,  but  could  not  be  bent  by  force.  Of 
gentle  pedigree,  he  was  best  won  by  gentleness.  The 
versatility  of  his  politics  has  been  shown  in  this  narra 
tive,  and  his  eulogist  observes  that  he  had  always  the 
happy  faculty  of  appearing  conspicuous  at  the  right 
moment  on  all  the  great  national  questions.  The  pen 
dulum  of  his  political  morals  vacillated  between  good 
and  bad;  and  he  pursued  the  game  of  politics  with  as 
keen  a  zest  as  Clay,  though  in  qualities  for  leadership 
unworthy  of  comparison  with  the  man  against  whom 
he  measured  himself.  But  if  Tyler  was  but  a  sparrow 
for  building  up  a  national  party,  he  could  kill  cock- 
robin,  and  Clay  and  Van  Buren  both  fell  pierced  by  his 
arrow.  Tyler's  keen  relish  of  life  gave  him,  in  short, 
a  strong  hold  upon  it ;  and  he  never  knew  the  pangs  of 
poverty.  His  animal  spirits  were  unfailing;  his  tears 
passed  off  like  summer  showers,  and  if  he  mourned 
the  dead  he  loved  the  living  best. 

The  apostate,  however  wise  or  amiable,  fills  a  spotted 
page  in  history,  for  in  the  long  run  even  fidelity  to 
honest  error  wins  more  respect  than  levity  as  between 
error  and  truth.  The  most  signal  measures  of  his 
administration  yielded  him  no  lasting  renown.  Web 
ster  made  the  Ashburton  treaty  the  excuse  for  linger 
ing  in  his  cabinet  and  received  the  honors  of  that  ar 
rangement;  Calhoun,  whose  influence  gained  the  as 
cendant,  decked  himself,  and  quite  unfairly,  with  the 


316         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

whole  plumage  of  Texas  annexation ;  even  the  glory  of 
Tyler's  bank  vetoes  was  a  negative  one,  based  upon 
fallacious  reasons  and  dimmed  by  dark  reproach  of 
duplicity.  Whigs  and  Democrats  together  despoiled 
him  of  his  fame  after  he  had  left  office,  so  that  Folk's 
memory  was  no  sweeter  than  Clay's  to  the  ex-President. 
His  retirement  was  permanent  until  a  last  crucial  test 
proved  that  his  heart  was  with  the  South  and  not  the 
Union.  Wise,  his  wayward  counsellor,  has  written 
kindly  of  him,  as  of  the  weaker  vessel ;  but  except  for 
the  praises  of  cabinet  officers  uttered  while  they  were 
part  of  it,  Tyler's  administration  was  never  eulogized 
except  by  himself  while  he  lived  and  after  his  death  by 
his  own  sons. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  KNOX  POLK. 

§  I.  Period  of  Twenty-Ninth  Congress.  March  4,  i845-March 
3,  1847.— §  II.  The  Mexican  War.  May,  i846-September, 
1847.— §  III.  Period  of  Thirtieth  Congress.  March  4,  1847- 
March  3,  1849. 

JAMES  K.  POLK  was  not  a  man  of  soft  and  smirk 
ing,  or  even  impartial  phrases,  but  stern  and  reso 
lute,  having  a  sense  of  sole  allegiance  to  the  party 
which  had  elevated  him  to  command.  His  mind 
was  incapable  of  taking  in  the  broader  relations  of 
things.  What  he  went  for  he  fetched;  his  platform 
was  sacred  as  a  creed,,  and  opposition  to  that  creed 
called  for  compulsion.  Born  in  Mecklenburg  County, 
North  Carolina,  the  oldest  of  ten  children,  and  the  son 
of  a  plain  but  sturdy  farmer  who  removed  to  Tennessee 
early  in  this  century  and  became  one  of  the  pioneers  in 
the  valley  of  the  Cumberland,  he  grew  up  with  that  in 
fluential  State,  and,  rising  superior  to  his  earlier  oppor 
tunities,  gained  a  fair  classical  education,  after  which 
he  studied  law,  and,  like  so  many  of  his  fellow  southern 
ers,  went  from  law  into  politics.  He  entered  Congress 
when  thirty  years  of  age,  a  devoted  Jacksonian.  His 
Democracy  came  honestly,  for  his  father  had  been  one 
of  Jefferson's  strong  admirers.  Constancy  to  the  star 
of  Jackson's  fortunes  brought  him  his  sure  reward ;  and 
as  Speaker  and  House  leader  under  the  administration 
of  his  illustrious  fellow-citizen,  he  gained  respect  as  a 


3i8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

safe  partisan.  He  could  pull  and  sweat  in  the  party 
traces;  and  though  no  originator  of  measures,  he  de 
fended  them  ably  and  was  unwearied  in  the  despatch 
of  routine  business.  After  fourteen  years  of  such  ex 
perience  he  had  left  the  scenes  of  our  capital  to  share 
the  vicissitudes  of  State  politics  during  Jackson's  re 
tirement.  Here  he  was  a  governor,  once  elected  and 
twice  defeated ;  but  his  plain  and  consistent  Democracy, 
his  views  on  the  Texas  question,  and  Jackson's  per 
sonal  friendship  withal,  proved  him  the  man  that  dis 
cordant  elements  might  unite  upon.  And  so,  while 
seeking  the  secondary  distinction  of  Vice-President, 
Polk  had  the  first  and  greater  bestowed  upon  him; 
and  on  the  familiar  steps  of  the  capital,  after  a  six 
years'  absence,  he  took  the  oath  of  office  as  his  great 
patron  had  done  before  him. 

A  man  of  middle  height,  of  plain  and  unassuming 
manners  and  conversation,  with  a  grave  and  rather 
stern  expression  of  countenance  which  was  sometimes 
lit  up  by  a  pleasant  smile,  the  new  President  inspired 
no  awe,  and  there  was  nothing  about  him  to  recall  the 
dignity  and  conscious  force  of  the  superb  commander 
whose  glory  he  reflected.  But  Polk  understood  well  his 
place  and  what  the  Democrats  expected  of  him.  His 
Congressional  training  fitted  him  for  despatching  the 
public  business,  and  his  whole  habit  of  thought  made 
him  diligent,  systematic,  faithful  to  his  purpose,  and 
concentrated  upon  carrying  out  the  policy  he  had  been 
the  chosen  instrument  to  accomplish.  He  heeded,  more 
over,  all  the  rights,  all  the  points,  on  his  own  side,  as 
an  even-paced  lawyer  will  guard  and  fight  for  his  client, 
who  is  not  troubled  with  a  discriminating  perception 
of  the  rights  of  an  adversary.  Admirably  fitted  did  he 
show  himself  as  executor  of  a  prearranged  policy  by 


POLK  AS  PRESIDENT  319 

details,  though  he  fell  short,  as  events  proved,  of  that 
ideality  in  statesmanship  which  seizes,  controls,  and 
harmonizes  the  great  army  of  voters  and  leads  to  new 
fields  and  fresh  conquests.  Men  about  him  who  were 
capable  of  judging  pronounced  him  one  of  the  best  of 
administrators,  clear  and  persistent  in  his  course,  the 
master  of  his  own  cabinet,  and  not  ruled  by  the  ablest 
of  his  advisers.  One  trait  which  gave  him  this  con 
trolling  advantage  was  his  power  of  secrecy,  which 
was  so  great  that  those  whose  official  intercourse  was 
closest  with  him  were  unable  to  trace  the  course  of  his 
thoughts.  Polk,  too,  had  respect  for  his  place,  and, 
unlike  his  predecessor,  who  was  always  defending,  ex 
plaining,  and  equivocating,  he  shut  his  lips  against  his 
worst  traducers.  In  private  life  he  was  pure  and  up 
right,  honest  as  the  day  (for  men  will  be  thus  scrupu 
lous  who  are  ready  to  take  advantage  in  their  official 
relations),  a  scorner  of  bribes,  and  rigid  in  his  religious 
observances.  His  wife,  an  accomplished  woman  of 
the  strictest  Presbyterian  faith,  strained  the  etiquette 
of  the  White  House  to  her  standard  of  decorum.  This 
married  pair  had  no  children  and  their  domestic  habits 
were  simple. 

Such  was  the  "scourge  of  God,"  foreordained,  as 
it  might  almost  seem,  to  fulfil  the  ends  of  the  new 
American  spirit  of  territorial  manifest  destiny,  and, 
reckless  of  all  intervening  rights,  carry  the  flag  of  our 
republic  across  the  Sabine  and  over  the  continent  till 
it  swept  a  broad  area  to  the  Pacific  seas.  No  former 
President,  perhaps,  at  the  outset  of  his  administration, 
ever  had  so  clear  and  positive  a  perception  of  what  he 
meant  to  do,  and  none  ever  despatched  his  ambitious 
programme  more  thoroughly.  In  a  private  conversation 
with  one  of  his  chosen  cabinet,  which  is  still  preserved, 


320         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Polk  announced  his  purpose  soon  after  he  had  taken 
the  oath  of  office.  "There  are  four  great  measures," 
said  he,  with  emphasis,  striking  his  thigh  forcibly  as 
he  spoke,  "which  are  to  be  measures  of  my  administra 
tion  :  one,  a  reduction  of  the  tariff ;  another,  the  inde 
pendent  treasury ;  a  third,  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon 
boundary  question;  and,  lastly,  the  acquisition  of  Cali 
fornia.''  And  history  should  record  that  Polk  entered 
on  his  official  duties  with  the  immovable  purpose  of 
carrying  every  one  of  these  measures  into  effect,  and 
before  his  term  had  ended  accomplished  them  all. 


The  Oregon  settlement,  mutually  honorable  and  ad 
vantageous  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  was 
hastened  by  a  strange  climax  of  affairs,  in  which  each 
negotiating  party  found  itself  too  weak  to  take  advan 
tage  of  the  other,  while  both  were  anxious  to  retreat 
from  an  embroilment.  Polk's  administration,  as  we 
shall  soon  see,  had  another  war  on  its  hands  already; 
while  Sir  Robert  Peel  tottered  under  the  obloquy  of 
his  corn-law  repeal,  that  reform  which  served  for  his 
noblest  public  monument  and  his  tomb.  Of  frozen 
Oregon  the  better  part  was  ours,  and  the  last  mile 
stone  of  the  American  Union  was  peacefully  placed  at 
the  Pacific. 


The  pacifying  temper  of  the  Peel  ministry  through 
these  Oregon  troubles  was  due  in  some  degree  to  the 
disposition  shown  by  our  new  rulers  on  the  tariff  ques 
tion.  England's  splendid  peer,  who  fell  from  power 
because  he  dared  leave  his  own  rank  to  lift  up  the 
workingman,  was  intent,  most  of  all,  upon  the  free- 


TARIFF  REDUCTION  321 

trade  policy  whose  successful  establishment  has  re 
versed  British  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  mankind. 
The  triumph  of  Cobden  and  cheap  bread,  under  the 
Peel  alliance,  would  throw  open  the  queen's  gates  to 
our  western  granaries  and  admit  the  American  farmer 
to  an  immense  foreign  market  which  hitherto  had  been 
barred  against  him.  Fresh  free-trade  breezes  swept 
through  the  Mississippi  valley,  welcomed  this  time  by 
the  vast  food-producing  region  of  the  northwest,  and 
not  by  southern  staple-raisers  alone,  those  pitiless  foes 
of  a  protective  tariff.  A  great  trading  and  carrying 
interest  by  sea  and  land  felt  the  light  stir ;  for  by  what 
surer  means  could  the  export  of  American  grain,  bread- 
stuffs,  and  staples  be  made  to  thrive  than  by  inviting 
British  commodities  back  in  exchange  by  a  scale  of  du 
ties  more  favorable  ?  Thus  was  the  free-trade  tendency, 
like  the  protective  before  it,  a  rule  of  expediency  to  be 
accommodated  to  the  times,  though  in  no  sense  to  make 
a  governing  theory.  Unlike  Great  Britain,  ours  was  a 
country  which  contained  in  itself  all  the  resources  of 
independent  existence ;  it  was,  moreover,  a  new  country, 
with  infantile  industries  which  needed  fostering  for 
some  time  longer.  The  Emperor  Napoleon,  when 
asked  if  he  would  countenance  free  trade  for  France,  is 
said  to  have  responded :  "We  are  fifty  years  behind 
England.  Give  me  skill  and  experience ;  place  me  upon 
an  equal  footing;  and  I  will  try  the  experiment." 

President  Polk  in  his  first  annual  message  recom 
mended  a  change  in  the  tariff  favorable  to  this  new 
situation  of  affairs,  and  his  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  reported  to  the  same  effect.     Their  Deceinber. 
argument  assailed  the  tariff  of  1842  as  a  dis 
crimination  against  agriculture  to  swell  the  profits  of 
the  manufacturers,  and  they  denounced  the  principle 


322         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  protection;  they  claimed  that  import  duties  should 
be  adjusted  to  the  necessities  of  the  revenue.  They 
took  issue  with  the  Whigs  and  with  Webster  on  the 
assertion  that  a  high  tariff  insured  high  wages  to  the 
workman  and  kept  him  employed;  it  was  the  mill- 
owner,  they  replied,  and  not  his  workman  who  took 
the  extra  profits.  By  such  arguments  the  party  in 
power  prevailed,  alluding  as  little  as  possible  to  the 
free-trade  parallel  in  England;  its  opponents,  on  the 
other  hand,  trying  to  arouse  prejudice  by  taunts  of  a 
British  alliance. 


Two  points  are  observable  in  the  rapid  and  impor 
tant  work  of  this  Congressional  session :  first,  that 
Texas,  whose  representatives  cast  their  votes 
with  the  rest,  was  now  a  State  in  the  Union ; 
next,  that  the  incorporation  of  that  State  had  speedily 
involved  the  United  States  in  a  war  with  Mexico.  The 
administration  and  its  friends  were  courageous  cer 
tainly,  or  venturesome,  in  adhering  to  their  new  tariff 
bill  after  the  war  had  actually  begun  and  more  than 
ten  millions  had  been  appropriated  for  maintaining  our 
arms.  They  believed,  doubtless,  that  because  the  con 
test  of  republics  was  so  unequal  the  stronger  would 
easily  prevail;  but  there  is  a  strength  in  desperation 
to  save  one's  native  soil  which  may  humble  even  con 
querors.  Money,  they  thought,  would  purchase  peace, 
would  purchase  territory,  by  bribing  at  least  the  leaders 
of  this  poor  people;  but  the  leaders  heeded  the  public 
voice,  and  the  people,  though  their  republic  be  mis 
governed,  are  rarely  craven  enough  to  barter  for  gold 
their  country's  cause.  Mexico,  though  torn  with  intes 
tine  quarrels  like  all  the  other  Spanish- American  coun- 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  323 

tries  to  the  south  of  us,  preserved  the  spark  of  liberty 
and  the  remnant  of  her  old  Spanish  pride.  In  fine,  if 
we  were  to  conquer  Mexico,  we  must  conquer  her  like 
Cortez.  This  mingled  race  of  Aztecs  and  Aztec  con 
querors  had  too  little  cold  prudence  to  purchase  a  pusil 
lanimous  peace.  But,  besides  all  this,  the  rapacity  of 
our  annexationists  was  already  too  great  for  any  peace 
ful  sacrifice  to  have  saved  Mexico  from  mutilation. 
Texas,  indeed,  was  already  torn  from  her ;  whether  that 
province  should  go  to  the  United  States  or  remain  in 
dependent  had  been  the  only  practical  issue  these  last 
four  years ;  had  that  been  the  only  prize,  we  might  have 
borne  it  off  in  peace  after  all  our  perfidy.  But  "pur 
posely,"  as  President  Tyler  had  stated  it  in  his  Texas 
treaty  message,  the  boundary  of  Texas  had  been  kept 
open  for  negotiation  with  Mexico.  This  meant  that 
he  adopted  the  fraud  of  the  Texas  revolutionists  in 
voting  to  themselves  the  whole  domain  of  Mexico  to 
the  Rio  Grande,  whereas  the  original  and  uniform 
southwestern  boundary  of  the  Texas  province  was 
admitted  to  be  the  river  Nueces  and  its  interior  valley, 
an  area  sufficient  to  comprise  all  they  had  colonized. 
It  meant  still  more  than  this,  that  the  glut  of  our  slave 
holders  would  not  be  satiated  without  a  new  boundary 
line  across  the  continent  which  would  give  them  New 
Mexico  and  the  long-coveted  region  of  California. 
Folk's  first  hope  was  like  his  predecessor's,  that  Cali 
fornia,  so  remote  from  the  seat  of  the  Mexican  govern 
ment,  might  be  bought ;  that  if  our  terminus  was  fated 
to  advance,  the  terminus  of  our  sister  republic  would 
accommodate  and  recede.  But  all  such  hopes  were  a 
delusion.  The  wolf  seemed  now  our  emblem,  as  of 
the  splendid  republic  which  Romulus  founded;  but 
Mexico  was  not  the  lamb  dumb  before  her  shearers. 


324         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

Neither  of  these  southern-bred  Presidents  felt  that 
compunction  for  the  rights  of  the  weaker  which  makes 
just  men  hesitate. 


The  Mexican  war  was  fought  in  a  region  where  the 
new  system  of  railway  as  also  of  telegraphic  connec 
tion  had  found  no  development.  By  the 
September.  ^mQ  tnat  war  nad  fairly  begun  some  twelve 
hundred  miles  of  telegraph  were  in  operation 
under  Kendall's  energetic  operation;  but  its  chief 
spread  was  northward  from  Washington  into  the  pop 
ulous  Middle  and  Eastern  States.  War  news  was 
thus  disseminated,  but  not  official  despatches  between 
our  capital  and  the  seat  of  war.  But  as  this  Congress 
had  the  honor  of  establishing,  after  long  delay,  the 
Smithsonian  Institution,  in  the  interest  of  science,  so 
had  its  predecessor  accomplished  something  in  the  di 
rection  of  increasing  the  popularity  and  usefulness  of 
the  post-office.  Rowland  Hill's  reforms  in  England, 
and  the  new  enterprise  of  the  electric  telegraph,  which 
the  United  States  was  asked  to  buy  out,  but  did  not, 
lent  a  strong  impulse  in  the  direction  of  cheap  postage. 
In  place  of  the  old  letter  rates  graded  from  6  to  25 
cents  for  each  piece  of  paper  according  to  a  table  of 
graded  distances,  new  rates  nearly  uniform  were  fixed 
by  weight  at  5  cents  per  half  ounce  for  less  than  300 
miles,  and  10  cents  for  longer  distances.  Private  ex 
presses  had  carried  much  mail  matter,  because  of  their 
responsibility  and  greater  swiftness,  but  the  new  law 
monopolized  the  business  for  the  United  States  on  all 
mail  routes ;  prepayment,  too,  being  now  required,  here 
as  abroad,  postage-stamps  came  soon  into  use.  With 
the  era  of  the  Mexican  war  the  long  and  carefully- 


TWO  GREAT  GENERALS  325 

written  letter  package,  folded  over  and  sealed,  began 
to  decline;  while  the  Morse  invention,  though  useless 
for  our  military  and  naval  operations,  was  found  at 
once  of  great  benefit  in  aiding  the  arrest  of  fugitives, 
and  affording  to  our  busy  merchants  the  latest  price 
quotations  and  the  latest  foreign  arrivals,  and  the  latest 
intelligence,  besides,  which  reached  Washington  from 
the  far-off  battle-fields.* 


Two  distinguished  commanders  of  kindred  politics, 
natives  of  America,  born  in  the  same  illustri 
ous  mother  State,  and  serving  as  soldiers  1846-47. 
under  the  same  stars  and  stripes,  could 
hardly  have  been  more  unlike  in  personal  traits  and 
military  methods.  Winfield  Scott  was  the  outrank 
ing  officer,  being  already  commander-in-chief  of  our 
army  at  the  time  when  war  was  declared;  and  he  has 
given  himself  full  credit  in  his  late  memoirs  for  con 
curring  in  the  detail  of  Taylor,  a  subordinate  officer, 
to  command  at  Corpus  Christi  when  matters  became 
critical  with  Mexico.  Zachary  Taylor  was  at  that  time 
a  brigadier-general  by  brevet,  but  in  lineal  rank  no 
more  than  a  colonel.  Entering  at  early  manhood  into 
the  military  service  of  the  United  States,  among  the 
regulars,  he  had  won  gradual  renown  as  a  brave,  ef 
ficient,  and  trustworthy  officer ;  and  yet  his  record  was 
by  no  means  distinguished.  Once  he  had  sturdily  re 
pelled  the  Indian  chief  Tecumseh  while  in  command 
of  a  frontier  fort  at  the  northwest ;  but  that  same  war 

*  For  important  historical  material  contained  in  President 
Folk's  diary  and  correspondence,  which  throw  new  light  upon 
the  Mexican  war  and  Folk's  administration,  see  this  author's 
articles  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  August  and  September,  1895,  which 
were  republished  in  Historical  Briefs,  121,  139. 


326         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  1812  brought  him  no  such  conspicuous  laurels  as 
those  of  Chippewa  and  Lundy's  Lane  to  the  gallant 
Scott;  while  his  long  record  in  the  ensuing  years  of 
peace  showed  nothing  more  memorable  than  sharing 
with  others  of  our  generals  in  the  baffled  pursuit  of  the 
Florida  Seminoles.  Yet  of  these  two  Virginians,  so 
unequal  in  distinction  when  Texas  entered  the  Ameri 
can  Union,  Taylor  was  somewhat  the  older,  being  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  Mexican  war,  in  fact,  full  sixty-one 
years  of  age,  though  of  sound  health  still,  and  a  rugged 
constitution.  Scott  appreciated  this,  as  well  as  Tay 
lor's  somewhat  rigid  disregard  of  forms.  According 
ly,  when  detailing  him  to  command  on  the  Mexican 
frontier,  the  commander  took  care  to  provide  him,  un 
solicited,  with  a  staff  officer  of  modest  manners,  his 
exact  complement;  for  he  knew  Taylor  (as  he  says) 
to  be  slow  of  thought,  hesitating  in  speech,  and  unused 
to  the  pen.  To  this  admirable  combination  of  general 
and  chief  of  staff  he  ascribes,  with  no  little  pique  and 
very  scant  justice,  the  train  of  good  military  fortune 
which  followed. 

Taylor's  bright  star,  brighter  than  his  own  while  it 
lasted,  was  indeed  one  of  the  sorest  tribulations  to 
which  our  autocrat  of  the  regular  army  had  to  school 
himself;  for  Winfield  Scott,  with  all  his  noble  and 
estimable  traits,  was  of  a  vain  and  irritable  disposition, 
such  as  could  brook  no  rival ;  and  unfortunately  too 
he  had  been  long  in  training  for  President.  Scott  as 
pired  to  be  first  in  war  and  in  peace  besides.  In  mili 
tary  honors  he  well  deserved  supremacy;  for  he  was 
prompt,  far-reaching,  and  skilful,  of  consummate 
experience  both  in  the  bureau  and  field,  thorough,  fear 
less,  and  self-confident  in  fight,  a  master  of  the  compli 
cated  details  of  moving  and  managing,  as  armies  in 


SCOTT  AND  TAYLOR  327 

those  days  were  moved  and  managed.  He  had,  more 
over,  a  wide  range  of  acquaintance  with  our  army 
officers  of  every  rank,  and  with  America's  most  eminent 
statesmen  besides.  But  the  jealousy  and  imperious 
temper  of  Scott's  nature  were  fostered  by  long  military 
habits  in  a  high  and  even  the  highest  grade.  As  he 
had  quarrelled  all  the  way  up  the  line  of  promotion, 
with  Generals  Wilkinson  and  Gaines,  with  Andrew 
Jackson,  with  De  Witt  Clinton,  with  John  Quincy 
Adams, — so  while  he  remained  of  pre-eminent  rank 
in  this  new  war,  except  for  the  President  himself,  he 
continued  to  quarrel  to  his  manifest  disadvantage, 
being  rarely  in  personal  sympathy  with  the  adminis 
tration.  He  was  of  impatient  spirit,  arbitrary,  over 
bearing;  though  not  always  without  reasonable  cause 
for  vexation  and  irritability.  All  this  placed  Scott  in 
strong  contrast  with  Taylor,  who  was  beloved  by  all 
who  served  under  him,  for  unaffected  simplicity  and 
kindness  of  heart,  and  took  little  interest  in  political 
rivalries.  Once  made  known  to  the  country,  the  latter 
struck  strongly  the  popular  chord.  Taylor's  age  won 
respect ;  and  when  advanced  age  was  once  perceived  to 
be  perfectly  consistent  with  valor,  strong  judgment, 
and  excellent  sense,  none  who  knew  him  or  served 
under  him  could  envy  greatly  his  quick  advance  to 
illustrious  honors.  Scott  himself  was  too  generous- 
hearted  not  to  accord  to  this  veteran  warrior,  who  had 
grown  gray  in  the  modest  performance  of  duty,  that 
true  basis  of  a  great  character,  pure,  uncorrupted 
morals,  combined  with  indomitable  courage  and  a  high 
purpose — at  the  same  time  that  with  envious  ridicule 
he  disparaged  Taylor's  moderate  learning  and  converse 
with  the  social  world,  in  comparison  with  his  own,  and 
deduced  rigidity  of  ideas  as  the  logical  consequence. 


328         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

But  Taylor,  if  ignorant  for  one  of  his  exalted  rank  in 
some  respects,  had  that  good  gift  of  common  sense  and 
sagacity,  and  that  sympathetic  tenderness  of  heart,  for 
which  learning  alone  is  no  substitute.  And  hence  of 
two  able  generals  developed  by  the  Mexican  war, 
equally  sincere  and  patriotic,  the  one  built  up  formid 
able  barriers  to  his  own  ambition,  while  the  other,  with 
scarce  an  obstacle  in  his  path,  attained  the  highest  re 
ward  his  countrymen  could  bestow,  and  when  dying 
left  behind  no  personal  enemy  in  the  world. 

In  personal  appearance  these  warriors  bore  no  re 
semblance.  Taylor  was  of  a  moderate  figure,  inclin 
ing  to  corpulence.  He  had  no  manly  beauty  in  his 
countenance;  but  his  features,  swarthy  and  weather- 
beaten,  though  homely  in  repose,  would  relax  with  a 
reassuring  smile,  which  kindled  from  the  eye  and  was 
wholly  genuine;  his  whole  aspect  when  animated  was 
intelligent,  benevolent,  and  full  of  good  humor.  But 
Scott  towered  in  any  crowd,  distinguished  by  his  hand 
some  and  leonine  face  and  proud  bearing;  he  was  the 
very  personification  of  an  illustrious  soldier.  His 
pictures  showed  him  as  he  preferred  to  sit  for  a  por 
trait,  wearing  the  full  insignia  of  his  exalted  rank, 
suitable  for  parade,  while  those  of  Taylor  arrayed  him 
rather  in  fatigue  cap  and  modest  undress;  for  while 
the  one  loved  pomp  and  ceremony,  and  relied  upon 
plumes  and  epaulets  to  add  to  his  impressive  effect,  the 
other  dressed  only  for  comfort,  and  had  nothing  of  the 
coxcomb  or  martinet  in  his  composition.  He,  in  fact, 
was  as  incorrigible  in  simplicity  as  his  superior  officer 
was  in  parade;  and  the  contrast  of  the  two  chieftains 
on  this  point  afforded  their  junior  officers  much  amuse 
ment.  Taylor,  so  the  story  ran  in  camp,  never  put 
on  full  uniform  but  twice  in  the  whole  Mexican  war, 


SCOTT  AND  TAYLOR  329 

both  being  unfortunate  occasions — on  one  of  which 
the  flag  officer  of  the  naval  squadron  and  he  reversed 
their  usual  habits  of  dress  to  accommodate  the  preju 
dices  of  one  another,  and  met  for  a  prearranged  inter 
view  with  embarrassing  apologies.  On  the  field  of 
action  "Old  Zack,"  as  the  soldiers  liked  to  call  him, 
rarely  wore  anything  to  indicate  his  rank,  or  even  that 
he  was  an  officer  at  all ;  all  his  men,  however,  knew  him 
well.  His  retinue  made  no  display.  But  Scott, 
whose  sobriquet  was  "Fuss  and  Feathers,"  wore, 
from  cockade  to  spur,  the  full  regulation  uniform,  on 
all  occasions  of  form,  and  expected  to  be  honored  by 
the  army  in  return.  At  the  seat  of  war,  whenever  he 
inspected  his  lines  his  intention  was  announced  in  ad 
vance,  and  he  would  appear  punctually  on  the  hour, 
mounted  on  his  charger  and  splendidly  dressed,  with 
his  staff  officers  equipped  to  correspond  and  riding  be 
hind  him  in  their  proper  order — as  many  of  them  as 
he  could  spare  for  the  occasion.  The  whole  body  of 
troops,  with  officers  posted  each  in  his  proper  place 
of  rank,  was  drawn  up  to  salute  the  chief  as  he  rode  by 
with  his  retinue,  sitting  erect  and  magnificent  in  his 
saddle,  his  superb  figure  set  off  by  sword,  gilt  buttons, 
epaulets,  and  a  black  chapeau  with  waving  feathers — 
a  commander  indeed,  and  almost  a  conqueror  by  the 
force  of  his  imposing  presence.  Scott  in  repose  bore  no 
little  resemblance  to  a  lion  or  to  some  huge  mastiff. 

In  battle,  too,  as  may  well  be  inferred,  the  methods 
of  these  heroes  were  quite  different.  Both  were  fear 
less;  but  Taylor's  exposure  of  his  person  to  danger,  his 
courage  in  assuming  oppressive  responsibilities,  was 
something  wonderful.  Where  the  iron  hail  fell 
thickest  he  would  ride  hither  and  thither,  surveying  the 
scene  calmly  and  giving  in  person  the  needful  orders; 


330         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

or  he  would  sit  sidewise  upon  his  horse,"Old  Whitey," 
as  though  the  animal  were  a  sofa,  so  as  to  get  a  good 
range  for  his  glass.  Nervous  volunteers  and  recruits 
who  had  never  been  under  fire  were  inspired  by  the  old 
man's  presence,  as  he  thus  identified  himself  with  his 
troops;  for  Taylor  always  looked  upon  the  fight 
through  his  own  eyes,  using  staff  officers  or  dispensing 
with  them  as  the  turn  of  action  might  require.  Scott, 
on  the  other  hand,  while  exacting  the  most  scrupulous 
respect  and  deference  to  himself,  aimed  constantly  to 
give  each  officer  in  return  who  served  under  him  the 
just  allowance  of  duty  and  chance  for  distinguished 
gallantry  according  to  his  rank ;  and  acting  by  rule  he 
would  move  the  whole  machine  forward  with  system 
and  precision.  He  used  more  than  Taylor  did  the  eyes 
of  his  staff  officers,  and  knowing  his  own  importance, 
avoided  personal  exposure.  Instead  of  giving  orders 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  to  meet  the  aspect  of  each 
fresh  emergency,  he  prepared  his  plans  deliberately  and 
sent  his  written  orders  about,  careful  compositions, 
with  an  ostentatious  pride  that  history  should  say  that 
what  he  wrote  down  he  accomplished.  He  had  a  liter 
ary  style  of  his  own  in  official  reports,  pungent,  posi 
tive,  and  not  without  the  marks  of  scholarship;  while 
Taylor's  dispatches  were  brief  and  pithy  like  a  Spar 
tan's,  and,  in  spite  of  Scott's  slurs,  it  is  probable  that  he 
composed  them.  Taylor's  methods,  in  a  word,  were 
unique  and  picturesque,  fitted  for  striking  some  great 
blow  and  winning  at  odds  a  battle  that  would  turn  the 
scale,  while  Scott's  comprehended  the  operations  of  a 
whole  war.  Scott,  in  fine,  was  looked  up  to  and  trusted 
with  good  reason ;  he  had  his  kind  side,  but  he  ruled  by 
force  and  discipline.  He  had,  moreover,  his  blind  side, 
for  he  was  vain-glorious,  fond  of  flattery,  and  jealous 


MEXICO  CONQUERED  331 

outside  of  his  profession ;  while  Taylor  s  more  amiable 
ambition  and  even  his  obstinate  whims  endeared  him 
to  all  who  served  under  him ;  he  cared  tenderly  for  his 
men  as  men,  and  they  loved  him  tenderly  in  return. 

Army  nicknames  do  not  compass  the  epitome  of 
character,  but  they  hit  the  nail  somewhere ;  and  so  was 
it  with  the  contrasting  titles  we  have  mentioned, 
"Rough  and  Ready,"  and  "Fuss  and  Feathers."  The 
point  of  each  epithet  was  obvious,  but  of  course  it  did 
the  latter  hero  injustice,  as  with  any  other  ruler  who 
does  not  rule  by  sympathy.  A  young  subaltern  of  this 
war,  whose  military  star  was  at  no  late  day  to  outshine 
these  conspicuous  luminaries  by  reason  of  exploits  on 
a  scale  far  more  tremendous,  has  left  in  his  own 
memoirs  a  just  conception  of  the  contrast  these  com 
manders  presented  in  the  field.  His  record  may  be 
trusted,  for  he  served  under  both  Scott  and  Taylor. 
"With  their  opposite  characteristics,"  he  writes,  "both 
were  great  and  successful  soldiers;  both  were  true, 
patriotic,  and  upright  in  all  their  dealings."  * 


By  this  time  Scott's  entrance  into  the  Mexican  capi 
tal  had  been  bulletined,  and  it  was  felt  that 
the  sister  republic  lay  prostrate  at  our  feet        i847. 
and  at  our  mercy.     Webster,  on  the  Senate 
floor,  had  already  proposed  that  no  territory  should  be 
annexed  at  all,  his  plea  being  that  this  Union  was 
scarcely  powerful  enough  or  virtuous  enough  to  bear 
the  weight  of  the  acquisition.     Such  a  proposal,  as 
events  moved,  was  only  more  Quixotic  than  that  of 
Clay's  Lexington  resolutions,  which  allowed  a  moder 
ate  annexation.     The  one  great  plan  which  fitted  the 
*iU.  S.  Grant's  Memoirs,  139. 


332         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

political  situation,  that  which  gave  the  whole  humane 
North  and  all  opposers  of  thisjvaj^crvmrpnn  grnnnH  tp 
unite  upon,  against  the  greed  of  slavery-extensiofl  in 
which  the,  wajijaciginated, jvas  the  Wilmot  Proviso — 
tfie  provision_that  all  territory  to  be  acquired  from 
Mexico  should  be  forever  consecrated  to  freedorn.  This 
Wilmot  Proviso  was  the  oneglorious  idea  engendered 
of  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress.  It  offered  to  mediate 
between  Whigs  and  the  conscience  Democrats.  It  pro 
posed  a  sort  of  national  penance  and  self-discipline  for 
the  sins  already  committed  against  a  fellow-race  and  a 
neighboring  republic.  If  adopted  in  season  it  must 
surely  have  stopped  the  wheels  of  war  short  of  violent 
dismemberment.  And  not  having  been  so  adopted, 
it  still  offered  the  solid,  the  single  political  means  of 
uniting  the  honest  anti-slavery  and  anti-slave-propa 
gating  sentiment  of  the  whole  country,  at  the  perilous 
crisis,  upon  legitimate  and  constitutional  ground,  most 
available  and  most  essential  to  Congress.  It  was  this 
practical  adaptiveness  to  the  times,  whether  the  war 
stopped  or  whether  it  went  on,  whether  acquisi 
tion  or  no  acquisition  resulted,  that  made  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  flame  in  the  skies  like  Constantine's  cross,  so 
instantly  hailed  with  delight  through  the  more  popu 
lous  range  of  the  Union,  though  cursed  by  slave  propa 
gandists  in  the  remote  South. 

Of  this  famous  Wilmot  Proviso,  David  Wilmot, 
rural  Pennsylvanian  and  Democrat  of  the  last  and  the 
next  House,  was  unquestionably  the  author ;  or  at  least 
was  author  of  an  adaptation.*  Not  only  did  colleagues 
and  contemporaries  allow  him  whatever  fame  might 
accrue  from  giving  to  so  important  a  proposal  the  pre- 

*The  language  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  closely  follows  the  Or 
dinance  of  1787,  but  adapts  its  language  to  the  existing  emergency. 


THE  WILMOT  PROVISO  333 

fix  of  his  name,  but  he  lectured  this  year  and  spoke  in 
various  meetings  and  conventions  of  other  States  for 
the  cause,  where  he  was  introduced  as  "author  of  the 
proviso."  At  one  of  these  meetings,  in  New  York 
State,  he  related  how  he  had  first  suggested  the  idea 
in  a  dinner-table  conversation,  and  upon  the  approval 
of  two  friends,  submitted  it  to  a  larger  council  of  Dem 
ocrats,  and  then,  with  their  united  assent,  proposed  it 
to  the  House  as  a  rider  to  the  war  appropriation  bill. 
"There  goes  the  proviso,"  gallery  visitors  at  the  Capitol 
would  whisper  in  these  days,  while  the  House  was  in 
session,  pointing  to  a  stout  Dutch-built  man  of  moder 
ate  height,  with  light  hair  and  eyes,  smooth  face  and 
florid  complexion,  who  moved  among  the  desks, 
slightly  conscious  of  attracting  notice,  with  a  pleasing 
countenance. 

The  Northern  dissensions  which  the  Mexican  war 
bred  in  our  Democracy,  and  the  whole  crafty  policy  of 
the  administration,  portended  political  disaster.  Those 
dissensions  widened  rapidly  under  the  wedge  of  the 
Wilmot  Proviso;  in  New  York  State,  more  especially, 
where  Marcy's  influence  was  that  of  a  "hunker"  or 
"hard  shell"  (to  apply  the  cant  term  of  the  day)  and 
could  not  reconcile  the  "softs"  or  "barnburners"  who 
inclined  to  anti-slavery  views  and  the  leadership  of 
Silas  Wright.  Wright's  death  this  year,  after  the  fail 
ure  to  re-elect  him  governor,  was  a  serious  blow  to 
Democrats  of  the  latter  class,  and  a  calamity  to  all  citi 
zens,  irrespective  of  party,  who  had  resolved  that  a 
barrier  must  be  opposed  to  the  further  usurpations 
of  slavery.  Polk's  administration,  which  owed  much 
to  this  man,  had  rendered  him  little;  aware  that 
his  steadfast  soul  disapproved  of  its  policy,  and 
that  the  anti-slavery  element  of  the  country  turned 


334         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

to  him  for  next  President.  'The  Wilmot  Proviso," 
wrote  Horace  Greeley  in  an  obituary  sketch,  "owes 
more  to  Silas  Wright  than  to  any  other  man ;  he  was 
the  soul  and  centre  of  the  influence  that  held  so  many 
of  his  party  steadfast  through  the  trials  of  last  winter." 


This  was  one  of  those  epochs  of  popular  revulsion 
when  a  high  surge  seems  to  sweep  away  from  our  Rep 
resentatives'  chamber  the  familiar  set.  Of 
December.  22&  members  in  the  present  House,  less  than 
100  had  served  in  the  one  preceding,  and  the 
proportion  of  new  members  was  very  great ;  while  from 
the  West  came  several  strangers  of  striking  figure  and 
physiognomy,  all  in  the  prime  of  early  manhood. 

One  of  these  last  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois, 
a  Whig  whom  journalists  likened  to  a  lonely  sycamore 
among  the  forest  Democracy  of  his  State.  By  a  singu 
lar  coincidence,  two  men,  the  antipodes  of  one  another, 
and  destined  to  a  world-wide  renown,  entered  this  win 
ter  the  opposite  portals  of  the  Capitol :  both  uncon 
scious,  no  doubt,  of  the  collision  time  had  in  store  for 
them,  and,  for  the  present  conjunction,  hardly  passing 
the  salute  of  acquaintance.  These  two  men  were  Lin 
coln  and  Jefferson  Davis,  born  in  the  same  slave  State, 
the  one  of  poor-white  pedigree,  the  latter  of  patrician, 
and  taken  in  tender  years  to  opposite  points  of  the  com 
pass.  Lincoln  had  educated  himself  in  the  bitter  school 
of  privation,  while  Davis's  training  was  a  military  one 
at  the  cost  of  the  general  government. 

Two  men  more  different  in  traits  and  physiognomy 
at  the  present  time  it  would  be  hard  to  discover.  Davis, 
of  wiry  and  compact  frame  and  medium  height,  com 
bined  the  easy  manners  of  a  Southern  gentleman  whose 


LINCOLN  AND  DAVIS  335 

position  was  assured  with  the  firm  and  erect  carriage  of 
a  soldier,  conscious  of  the  distinction  he  had  won  in  the 
late  war,  by  individual  gallantry  and  his  marriage  con 
nection  with  General  Taylor.  Davis  had  served  lately  in 
the  House,  but,  resigning  his  seat  to  lead  a  Mississippi 
regiment,  he  came  back  as  a  Senator  to  fill  a  vacancy, 
under  the  temporary  appointment  of  the  Governor,  and 
was  confirmed  by  the  legislature  of  his  State.  His  cast 
of  mind  was  rigid  and  strongly  Southern ;  cotton  formed 
the  staple  of  his  political  economy,  and  Calhoun  was 
his  ideal  of  a  statesman.  His  heart  was  consecrated  to 
expanding  the  area  for  slave  States,  and  for  that  patri 
archal  system  of  labor  as  to  whose  eternal  fitness  he  felt 
no  doubt  whatever.  He  was  precocious  in  hardeninginto 
that  tenacious,  inflexible  attachment  to  precepts,  which 
in  these  waxen  days  of  Northern  sensibility  won  so 
many  concessions  for  the  sake  of  national  harmony.  As 
an  instance  of  rigidity  worthy  a  disciple  of  the  South 
Carolinian,  Davis  had  just  declined  a  commission  from 
the  President,  as  brigadier-general  of  volunteers,  on 
the  ground  that  only  a  State  could  confer  such  a  title ; 
and  the  first  impression  he  made  this  winter  in  Sena 
torial  debate  was  as  a  martinet  who  praised  regular 
troops  above  volunteers  as  soldiers,  in  words  that  inti 
mated  quite  offensively  that  "the  lower  grades  of  men'' 
were  the  better  kind  for  such  as  himself  to  handle. 

What,  if  he  ever  encountered  him,  this  haughty  scion 
of  the  Democracy  thought  of  that  gaunt,  awkward,  ill- 
dressed  Whig  of  the  other  House,  who  was  easy-hu 
mored  and  companionable,  but  shy  of  drawing-room 
receptions,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Had  not 
Abraham  Lincoln  been  pulled  out  of  slave  soil  while  his 
roots  were  tender  he  would  have  died  unknown.  But 
poverty  in  a  free  territory  helped  make  a  man  of  him. 


336         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

This  Congress  saw  the  first  and  last  of  him  in  legis 
lative  life,  however,  for  he  declined  to  run  another 
term,  and  his  district  reverted  to  the  Democrats.  Sin 
gular  and  striking  in  personal  appearance,  as  those  who 
met  him  in  these  years  observed — not  supposing  that 
observation  of  much  consequence — a  kind  but  shrewd 
sagacity  and  droll  humor  were  his  salient  traits.  Above 
all,  he  imaged  to  the  mind  a  steadfast  honesty  of  pur 
pose,  and  genuineness.  In  a  single  year  he  was  pro 
nounced  a  universal  favorite  among  men  who  could 
appreciate  whatever  was  rare,  racy,  and  unique,  and 
take  a  rough  diamond  upon  its  own  intrinsic  worth. 
Bad  taste  blurred  the  dignity  of  his  efforts  as  a  debater 
during  this  brief  national  episode,  as  when  one  enters 
the  fashionable  circle  in  a  homespun  suit.  He  showed 
himself  clear-headed,  a  master  of  resources,  nor  did  he 
fear  to  measure  himself  against  statesmen  of  renown; 
but  the  flavor  of  the  stump  and  village  grocery  de 
tracted  from  one  who  trained  with  the  party  of  gen 
tility.  In  one  speech  of  this  session  he  dissected  the 
President's  partisan  statement  of  the  causes  of  the 
Mexican  War,  and,  after  a  favorite  process  of  logical 
reasoning,  convicted  Polk  out  of  his  own  mouth.  But 
in  another  he  flung  dignity  to  the  winds,  and  in  a  sort 
of  colloquial  harangue  on  presidential  candidates,  he 
amused  the  House  with  humorous  stories  of  hogs  and 
oxen,  and  with  bucolic  illustrations,  pointed  and  racy, 
but  by  no  means  elegant.  Lincoln's  quaint  originality, 
in  short,  impressed  his  fellow-members  more  than  the 
fibre  of  his  statesmanship,  which  was  fair  and  cau 
tious  ;  and  had  he  been  returned  to  another  Congress  it 
is  possible  he  might  have  suffered,  on  becoming  better 
known,  that  popular  hindrance  to  high  honors  which 
more  than  one  able  American  has  lamented  in  his  own 


DEATH  OF  ADAMS  337 

instance,  by  gaining  the  reputation  of  being  comical. 
But  Lincoln  showed  himself,  even  at  this  homelier  stage 
of  advancement,  a  logician  of  no  mean  power,  whose 
conveyance  of  his  ideas  could  be  clear  and  picturesque, 
and  as  a  political  counsellor  he  was  sage  and  practical. 


A  glory  gilds  the  historical  page  for  a  moment. 
John  Quincy  Adams,  at  fourscore  years,  was  a  partic 
ipant  still  in  the  debates  of  the  House, 
though  less  actively  than  before,  and  rarely  1848. 
was  he  absent  from  his  seat.  As  senior 
member  he  administered  the  oath  to  Speaker  Winthrop, 
his  colleague,  when  the  House  organized.  The  Presi 
dent's  January  message,  which  refused  information  to 
the  House  concerning  the  objects  of  the  war  and  the 
instructions  given  for  procuring  a  peace,  brought  the 
old  man  on  his  feet  with  a  speech  to  which  the  whole 
hall  listened,  delivered  with  his  earlier  fire,  but  in  a 
failing  voice.  Adams  in  these  days  won  the  respect  of 
all  parties  and  all  sections  by  his  consummate  sturdi- 
ness  of  character.  A  reception  which  he  gave  that  same 
month,  where  Clay  was  present,  brought  a  more  eager 
throng  for  salutations  than  at  the  White  House. 
Never  since  the  ex-President  entered  the  House  had 
the  political  tone  of  his  native  State  been  so  nearly  in 
accord  with  his  own.  Punctually  on  the  2ist  of  Feb 
ruary  did  Adams  take  his  seat,  as  well  to  all  appear 
ances  as  usual.  Rumors  of  peace  and  of  the  treaty 
which  had  just  arrived  stirred  the  air  of  the  Capitol. 
The  House  was  occupied  upon  a  batch  of  trivial  resolu 
tions,  and  about  one  o'clock  Speaker  Winthrop  had 
risen  to  put  a  question  to  vote,  when  a  sudden  cry  was 
heard,  "Mr.  Adams  is  dying!"  The  venerable  states- 


338         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

man  was  falling  over  the  left  arm  of  his  chair  while  his 
right  arm  reached  out  to  grasp  his  desk  for  support. 
One  member  caught  him  in  his  arms,  while  others 
rushed  from  all  parts  of  the  hall  to  tender  assistance. 
The  House  adjourned  at  once,  and  its  dying  member, 
helpless  but  hardly  insensible,  was  borne  upon  a  sofa 
into  the  rotunda,  where  he  was  quickly  surrounded  by 
members  of  both  Houses,  and  strangers,  the  Senate  by 
this  time  having  also  adjourned  in  great  agitation. 
Upon  medical  advice  the  sofa  was  borne  to  the  entrance 
door  of  the  east  portico,  where  the  air  was  found  too 
chilly,  and  then  to  the  Speaker's  room,  whence  the 
crowd  was  excluded.  While  lying  here  Adams  par 
tially  recovered  his  speech  and  said  in  faltering  accents : 
"This  is  the  last  of  earth" — quickly  adding  the  final 
words,  "I  am  content."  Through  the  day  he  lingered, 
all  unconscious ;  through  the  next  also,  a  national  holi 
day,  whose  festivities  prearranged  were  suspended  in 
consequence;  and  in  the  early  eve  of  the  23d,  still  in 
the  Speaker's  room,  and  close  by  the  familiar  post  of 
duty,  the  great  commoner  breathed  his  last. 

It  was  a  remarkable  death,  worthy  of  a  remarkable 
man,  and  quite  resembling  that  of  America's  friend  in 
revolutionary  times,  the  Earl  of  Chatham.  Adams's 
example  thrilled  his  fellow-countrymen  at  last  as  though 
a  final  tableau  of  the  heroic  age  had  been  taken  with 
him.  It  was  false  to  imagine  that  slaveholders  honored 
most  deeply  in  their  hearts  Northerners  who  were  the 
most  pliable  to  their  wishes.  Bitter,  taunting,  exas 
perating  as  this  spokesman  of  a  pilgrim  constituency 
had  so  often  been,  they  vied  with  orators  of  Adams's 
own  section  and  vicinity  in  commemorating  the  varied 
talents,  the  vast  learning  and  experience,  the  accu 
mulated  public  honors,  the  spotless  private  character 


FOLK'S  CHARACTER  339 

and  religious  faith,  and  above  all,  the  admirable  cour 
age  and  consistency  which  marked  this  career  of  more 
than  fifty  years,  whose  conspicuous  merit  was  to  make 
the  humbler  post  of  fame  shine  brighter  than  the 
highest. 

Our  government  was  at  peace  with  all  nations  when 
Polk  vacated  the  Presidency.  In  the  midst  of  more  mo 
mentous  employments,  the  negotiation  of  treaties  ad 
vantageous  to  American  commerce  had  not  been 
overlooked  by  him.  The  example  of  treating  for 
eign  countries  liberally  in  our  own  ports  elicited 
corresponding  favors  which  argumentative  dip 
lomacy  would  have  sought  in  vain.  War  and  the 
rumors  of  war  had  now  swept  by;  our  administra 
tion  which  had  come  in  as  a  lion  went  out  as  a  lamb. 
The  crown  jewels  which  Folk's  strong  policy  be 
queathed  to  his  country  were  of  priceless  worth — Ore 
gon,  and  all  that  splendid  spoliation  of  Mexico,  whose 
chief  of  hidden  treasures  was  California. 

Folk's  remarkable  success  as  a  negotiator  and  ad 
ministrator  in  affairs  was  due  less  to  skilful  handling 
than  to  silence  and  secrecy.  Reticence  of  purpose 
helped  both  to  conceal  a  failure  and  to  win  from  success 
an  admiration  unexpected.  In  methods  he  was  pushing 
and  persistent,  aiming  straight  at  his  mark,  but  at  the 
same  time  adroit  and  baffling,  not  to  say  deceitful,  over 
the  plans  he  most  cherished.  The  Mexican  people  had 
good  cause  to  reproach  him  with  falsehood,  while  Dix 
and  Wilmot  are  among  those,  once  Folk's  party  friends, 
who  have  raised  their  own  issues  of  veracity.  Polk 
assuredly  did  not  scruple  to  dissimulate  as  to  his  real 
intentions,  and  his  repeated  misstatements,  official  and 
unofficial,  are  scarcely  palliated  by  that  peculiar  tern- 


340         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

perament  which  made  it  impossible  for  him,  even  when 
exalted  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  responsibility,  to  state 
a  public  question  as  though  it  had  two  sides  to  it.  Even 
at  the  last  moment  and  just  as  he  was  about  to  retire 
from  public  life,  a  peremptory  call  of  the  House  com 
pelled  him  to  confess  that  he  had  caused  the  treaty  of 
peace  with  Mexico  to  be  ratified  with  a  secret  protocol, 
of  which  our  Senate  had  never  been  apprised — a  pro 
tocol  which  neutralized  the  effect  of  amendments  our 
Senate  had  made  to  the  original  treaty. 


The  strong  traits  of  Folk's  administration  have  al 
ready  been  outlined.  It  was  unquestionably  an  admin 
istration  of  strong  achievements;  and  all  doubts 
may  be  dismissed  concerning  the  efficiency  of  the 
man  who  was  at  the  head  of  it.  Bancroft's  testi 
mony  as  a  cabinet  officer  is  confirmed  by  that  of 
Buchanan,  who,  spontaneously  and  in  private,  held 
Polk  up  in  later  years  as  a  model  President  in 
various  respects;  as  one  who  maintained  influence 
among  his  counsellors  by  his  great  reticence,  his 
disposition  to  keep  himself  uncommitted  on  important 
points  of  policy  until  the  time  should  arrive,  and  his 
determination  not  to  have  the  chieftains  of  embittered 
factions  with  rival  ambitions  about  him,  but  to  keep 
all  working  steadily  for  the  glory  and  success  of  his 
administration.  He  ascribed  Polk's  success  in  public 
measures,  more  than  anything  else,  to  his  regard  for 
the  vital  principle  of  official  unity  in  action.  And  this 
premier  has  recalled  another  trait  in  Polk's  manage 
ment  of  affairs  which  he  of  all  advisers  was  the  proper 
one  to  discern;  all  important  questions  with  foreign 
nations  were  drawn  to  himself  as  far  as  possible,  so 


FOLK'S  CHARACTER  341 


that  they  should  be  settled  at  our  capital  and  under  his 
immediate  supervision.  Though  Mexico  was  neces 
sarily  an  exception  to  such  a  course  of  dealing,  it  was 
characteristic  of  a  negotiator  like  this  to  send  to  the 
seat  of  war  a  clerk  of  the  Secretary  of  State  with  a 
treaty  already  drafted  under  his  personal  direction  as 
the  basis  of  a  settlement.  Polk,  in  fine,  had  limitations 
as  a  statesman,  and  greater  ones  as  a  political  manager ; 
but  experience  had  given  him  confidence  in  affairs.  He 
had  never  shirked  hard  work,  and  in  his  own  way  he 
faithfully  served  the  people.  He  was  not  fastidious; 
he  was  not  thoughtful  of  the  rights  of  other  peoples, 
other  races,  other  political  parties,  than  his  own.  He 
saw  what  he  wanted,  and  he  toiled  with  unwearied  zeal 
to  fetch  it.  His  motto  for  Americans  and  white  men 
was  to  keep  what  they  had  and  catch  what  they  could ; 
and  upon  that  theory  of  public  achievement  he  brought 
things  to  pass.  Ideality  and  the  highest  sense  of  honor 
were  wanting  to  such  a  policy;  and  while  our  people 
accepted  his  benefits  they  had  too  much  good  feeling  to 
commend  his  craft  or  reward  him  with  their  gratitude. 
The  heavy  burden  of  official  cares  and  that  heavier 
burden  of  popular  obloquy  which  this  lesser  son  of  Ten 
nessee  sustained  in  silence  were  more  than  his  health 
could  well  endure  in  the  later  prime  of  a  life  which  had 
been  loaded  down  with  public  activities.  Polk  had  no 
humorous  perception,  no  elasticity  of  spirits.  His  wife, 
an  exemplary  woman,  was  too  devout  for  social  levities, 
and  their  marriage  was  childless.  That  old  and  sor 
rowful  look  which  many  former  acquaintances  com 
mented  upon  when  he  journeyed  North  was  visible  at 
Adams's  funeral  and  on  the  few  other  occasions  of  this 
latest  winter  when  the  President  appeared  in  public. 
His  silvery  hair,  combed  to  the  back  of  his  head,  gave 


342         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

to  a  face  of  serious  demeanor  an  almost  venerable  look. 
After  the  inauguration  of  his  successor  on  the  5th  of 
March,  he  made  a  short  tour  southward  in  company 
with  ex-Secretary  Walker,  and  in  due  time  reached 
Nashville  and  his  home.  His  serious  illness  there  was 

announced  shortly  after,  and  next  his  death. 
junei5.  No  public  obsequies  were  arranged  in  his 

honor.  The  opposition  press,  which  had  ex 
ecrated  him  as  he  left  the  capital,  spoke  more  gently  of 
him  in  his  secluded  grave — of  the  quiet,  unostenta 
tious  life  he  had  lived ;  of  his  strictness  and  devoutness 
as  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian  Church ;  of  his  free 
dom  from  the  Southern  vice  of  duelling,  and  from  dis 
sipation  in  all  its  forms ;  of  his  irreproachable  character 
in  private,  and  finally,  as  a  public  man,  of  his  long  and 
distinguished  services  to  the  country.  After  this  brief- 
spaced  decent  tribute  Folk's  name  was  seldom  publicly 
mentioned.  Over  the  fruits,  sweet  and  bitter,  which 
his  administration  had  cast  so  abundantly  into  the  lap 
of  the  people,  there  sprang  up  very  soon  sectional 
quarrel  and  contention,  but  the  gatherer  of  those  fruits 
was  very  soon  forgotten. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  ZACHARY  TAYLOR. 
Period  of  Thirty-first  Congress.      March  4,   i849-July  9,    1850. 

THE  Deity  that  overrules  all  things  punishes 
the  sin  of  covetousness,  not  necessarily  by 
withholding  or  depriving  of  the  coveted  ob 
ject,  but  by  planting  in  the  wrongful  acquisition  a 
penalty.  The  men  or  the  people  who  yield  to  inordinate 
desires  are  permitted  to  be  further  corrupted  by  gaining 
what  they  strive  for.  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California, 
all  that  vast  sweep  of  territory  which  we  had  wrested 
from  Mexico  by  fraud  or  conquest,  was  ours  irrev 
ocably,  and  perhaps  forever.  We  peopled  that  glori 
ous  area  with  our  own  inhabitants;  we  gave  it  the 
blessing  of  a  better  civilization;  under  our  influence 
and  protection  the  wilderness  blossomed.  Time,  in 
fine,  has  welded  that  whole  annexation  so  firmly  and 
indissolubly  with  the  great  American  Union,  that  the 
earlier  misrule  of  Mexico  is  almost  forgotten.  In  one 
sense  it  was  better  for  society  that  the  acquisition  was 
made.  The  scorching  illustrations,  drawn  in  Corwin's 
famous  speech  from  Napoleon  and  modern  Europe, 
have  found  here  no  parallel;  in  American  history  no 
infatuated  warrior  has  bent  the  Republic  to  his  personal 
ambition ;  our  boundaries  have  not  expanded  like  those 
of  France  to  shrink  back  once  more  to  their  original 
limits.  Yet  divine  retribution  followed  as  quickly  as 


344         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

that  speech  predicted,  and  the  delusion  of  "manifest 
destiny"  brought  its  appropriate  punishment.  That 
the  iniquitous  war  with  Mexico  drove  from  public  con 
fidence  the  politicians  and  the  political  set  by  whom  it 
was  provoked,  our  last  chapter  has  shown.  Triumph 
ant  success  to  our  arms  did  not  turn  the  torrent  of 
popular  odium  which  the  prosecution  of  such  a  war 
excited.  That,  to  be  sure,  was  temporary,  and  while 
the  first  sense  of  guilty  wrong  lasted  after  the  secret 
motives  of  the  war  had  been  fully  revealed.  A  wider 
retribution  followed,  as  the  scroll  of  divine  requital 
slowly  unrolled.  In  less  than  five  years  North  and 
South  were  nearly  in  civil  conflict  to  settle  the  social 
status  of  these  new  territories;  in  five  years  more  the 
rivalry,  still  further  strengthened,  was  transferred  to 
other  territory  and  other  new  projects  for  slave  con 
quest;  another  five  years  saw  civil  disruption  and  a 
civil  war  such  as  the  world  had  never  witnessed;  and 
before  twenty  years  had  elapsed  slavery  and  slave  con 
federacy  had  melted  alike  in  the  fervent  heat  of  a 
strife  which  began  in  this  unhallowed  attempt  to  wrest 
the  domains  of  a  weaker  republic  for  the  spread  and 
perpetuation  of  slave  institutions  in  the  stronger.  Free 
dom  was  the  final  result  and  the  only  one  consonant 
with  eternal  justice;  but  that  goal  was  not  reached 
without  terrible  cost  and  sacrifice  to  both  North  and 
South,  for  men  of  each  section  had  erred  exceedingly. 
But  truly  this  new  acquisition  was  a  noble  one,  could 
we  but  have  gained  honorably  that  rich  and  picturesque 
domain.  With  Texas,  California,  Utah,  and  New 
Mexico,  that  broad  zone  was  now  complete  which 
girdled  the  continent  from  ocean  to  ocean.  This  proud 
and  independent  republic,  within  sixty  years  of  that 
compact  existence  which  began  with  the  Mississippi  for 


GOLD  IN  CALIFORNIA  345 

a  last  border,  had  crossed  that  broad  river  and  stretched 
its  empire  to  the  remote  and  undefined  peaks  of  the 
Rocky  Mountain  chain,  and  at  length,  sweeping  beyond 
that  mountain  barrier,  stretched  in  its  last  and  fullest 
expansion  to  the  Pacific.  The  two  great  seas  of  the 
world  now  washed  the  one  and  the  other  shore ;  and  a 
great  orator's  imagery  recalled  the  artist's  last  finish 
to  the  shield  of  Achilles,  when  he  poured  round  the 
waves  of  living  silver  which  "beat  the  buckler's  verge 
and  bound  the  whole." 


There  were  signs  and  portents  in  these  days  which 
augurs  of  the  old  Roman  world  would  have  collated. 
Zachary  Taylor  took  the  oath  of  office  under 
a  gloomy  sky,  while  a  raw  wind  blew  from  i849. 
the  east  and  intermittent  snowflakes  were 
falling.  Bloody  war,  with  Hungary's  vain  struggle 
for  independence,  agitated  eastern  Europe.  Riot  and 
incendiary  fire  attended  Tory  outbreaks  over  the  Cana 
dian  line,  in  the  course  of  which  the  buildings  of  a  pro 
vincial  parliament  were  burned.  Late  in  the  spring, 
within  our  national  borders  a  great  crevasse  and  river 
flood  made  much  distress  about  New  Orleans  city  and 
the  lower  Mississippi;  and  soon  afterwards  from  that 
same  unwholesome  region  stalked  forth  the  black 
plague  of  cholera  to  ravage  the  Union  far  and  wide  in 
course  of  the  summer,  and  reap  its  victims  in  all  direc 
tions  so  remorselessly  that  a  day  of  national  fast  and 
prayer  was  proclaimed  to  avert  so  terrible  a  scourge. 

But  startling  beyond  all  other  portents  was  that  pio 
neer  band  moving  westward  through  the  Rocky  wil 
derness,  upon  whose  flank  hovered  that  same  cholera 
pestilence,  breathing  its  rotten  breath,  but  powerless  to 


346         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

pursue  far ;  and  those  ocean  Argonauts,  besides,  whose 
faces  were  set  to  the  same  remote  land  of  the  golden 
fleece.  For  gold  was  the  new  and  startling  discovery 
in  California.  The  North  did  not  alone  watch  this 
portent.  Southerners,  less  identified  with  the  move 
ment,  slaveholders  of  the  Gulf,  observed  it  with  undis 
guised  dread  and  dismay.  And  when  presently  it  was 
revealed  that  a  new  free  State  was  forming  which  would 
cover  the  best  breadth  of  that  whole  Pacific  slope,  con 
quered  most  of  all  by  Southern  arms  in  the  interest  of 
Southern  expansion,  Southern  men  realized  that  Nature 
had  turned  the  tables  upon  them — that  the  fruits  of  our 
Mexican  conquest  were  ripening  for  those  who  opposed 
rather  than  for  those  who  incited  it.  To  free  Cali 
fornia,  what  was  slavery's  sure  counterpoise?  The  old 
equilibrium  of  sections  was  destroyed;  freedom  over 
balanced  the  scales  of  national  influence;  and  at  no 
distant  day  the  system  which  they  had  pressed  to  ex 
tend  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  numerical  majority 
whose  inner  wish  was  to  eradicate  it.  True,  there 
remained  the  bulwark  of  the  constitution  to  resist  en 
croachments  upon  the  institution  in  States  where  it 
already  existed.  But  to  remain  local  and  sectional,  and 
not  to  propagate  and  justify  their  own  peculiar  heritage, 
against  the  world's  philanthropy,  was  the  very  root  of 
bitterness  to  this  haughty  and  high-strung  race  of  pro 
prietors,  who  hardly  believed  that  freedom,  once  gaining 
the  upper  hand,  would  respect  the  restraints  of  the 
constitution.  "For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our 
country,"  writes  a  Southern  governor  impetuously, 
"the  North  is  dominant  in  the  federal  government." 

It  was  startling  to  see  Southern  Whigs  of  the  Gulf 
States  join  in  that  jealous  hue  and  cry — men  like  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens,  who  but  a  few  weeks  since  had 


A  NEW  FREE  STATE  347 

resisted  Calhoun's  artful  efforts  to  unite  all  the  slave 
holders  of  Congress  in  a  bold  menace  of  disunion;  or 
like  Toombs,  who  had  confessed  so  confidentially  that 
California  could  never  be  a  slave  country,  and  that  in 
organizing  the  territories  Southerners  had  only  the 
point  of  honor  to  serve.  Such  men  feared,  perhaps, 
that  the  home  sentiment  would  ebb  away  from  them  if 
they  pleaded  still  for  loyalty.  The  honor  of  a  gentle 
man  had  but  one  code — to  maintain  one's  point,  not  to 
discuss  its  righteousness.  Slavery  was  a  training- 
school  of  rebellious  temper,  of  impatience  to  force  ex 
tremities. 

The  Union  will  soon  dissolve  (thus  argued  the 
Southern  Whig)  ;  we  have  ultimately  to  submit  or 
fight;  the  anti-slavery  feeling  and  the  feeling  of  dis 
memberment  may  be  abated,  but  it  will  return  with 
increased  force.  "It  is  the  idea  of  the  age,  the  mono 
mania  of  the  century  in  which  we  live."  *  And  slave 
holders  who,  like  Stephens,  saw  in  political  dissolution 
a  resistless  fate,  apprehended  that  when  the  Congres 
sional  majority  in  House  and  Senate  was  once  footed 
up  against  the  South,  the  North  would  harass,  annoy, 
and  oppress. 


The  third  great  speech  of  March,    1850,  was  by 
Seward.    It  upheld  the  President's  course,  and  pleaded 
for  the  admission  of  California  under  her 
free  State  constitution,  without  extraneous       1850. 
conditions.     The  young  Senator  from  New 
York  was  already  looked  upon  as  the  Mordecai  in  the 
king's  gate;  and  Southern  men  blamed  the  President, 
one  of  themselves,  for  being  under  such  influence.    To 
*  Johnston's  A.  H.  Stephens,  c.  24. 


348         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

this  new  champion  of  the  forum  listened  all  of  the  tri 
umvirate,  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhoun,  gazing  silently 
while  he  spoke  of  things  strange  to  them.  He  seemed 
really  younger  than  he  was;  a  man  slightly  built  and 
agile,  clad  in  plain  black;  his  reddish  hair  turning 
brown,  but  not  yet  mingled  with  gray;  his  compact 
head  and  curving  features  marked  strongest  in  the  pro 
file.  Trying,  indeed,  must  it  have  been  for  Seward,  on 
his  first  national  occasion,  to  face  potentates  so  famous, 
and  yet  so  distrustful  of  him.  When  he  first  arose  he 
spoke  with  hesitation,  as  though  his  heart  failed  him, 
and  he  seemed  commonplace  by  comparison;  but  the 
substance  of  his  speech  was  striking,  and  his  plain 
features  soon  lighted  up,  until  the  warmth  of  his  elo 
quence  stirred  the  whole  chamber.  He  urged  broad 
moral  principle,  as  one  who  thought  the  old  equilibrium 
of  the  sections  should  never  be  restored.  He  condemned 
all  political  compromises  which  involved  matters  of  the 
conscience;  and  confidently  presaged  the  power  of  the 
American  people  to  maintain  their  national  integrity 
under  whatever  menace  of  danger.  This  was  the 
speech,  long  commented  upon,  which  announced  the 
"higher  law"  doctrine — that  higher  law  to  which  all 
human  legislation  should  conform. 

Of  all  these  famous  Senatorial  speeches,  Seward's 
was  by  far  the  most  profound,  and  worthiest  of  being 
read  in  a  calmer  age.  It  was  full  of  thought  and 
humanity,  and  lighted  up  with  prophetic  insight.  But 
Calhoun,  most  of  the  Olympian  trio,  was  galled  by  it. 
The  dying  statesman  had  glided  in  like  a  spectre  on  the 
day  that  Webster  spoke,  and  taken  part  in  a  brief  col 
loquy  at  the  close  of  its  magnificent  peroration.  More 
than  once  did  he  return,  and  when  Seward  spoke  he  sat 
riveted,  with  glassy  eyeballs  fixed  intently  upon  him. 


THE  SENATE  PLAN  349 

And  muttering  what  sounded  like  a  malediction,  he 
said  to  friends  about  him  that  one  with  such  ideas  of 
"higher  law"  was  not  the  kind  of  man  to  associate 
with;  and  in  that  repelling  mood,  so  fame  reports,  he 
left  the  accustomed  chamber  never  to  return.  Calhoun 
died  on  the  last  day  of  March,  a  confirmed  disunionist. 
And  on  his  dying  bed  he  told  Toombs  that  he  must 
leave  to  younger  men  the  task  of  carrying  out  his 
plans.* 

Had  Webster  and  Clay — or  had  either  one  of  them — 
stood  by  their  President,  history  might  have  vindicated 
a  policy  against  which  rebellion  had  no  just  cause  for 
appeal.  Sooner  or  later  California's  admission  as  a 
free  State  must  have  been  granted  if  she  was  to  remain 
a  national  prize  at  all,  and  in  all  other  respects — except 
the  boundary  issue  with  Texas — this  territorial  ques 
tion  might  have  been  adjourned  for  twenty  years. 
Without  positive  action  at  all  by  Congress  the  respon 
sibility  rested  upon  Presidential  shoulders,  and  there 
the  people  would  have  trusted  it.  But  the  Senatorial 
drift  was  to  Clay's  plan  of  compromise. 


Zachary  Taylor  was  the  first  of  American  Presidents 
wrhose  choice  rested  solely  upon  a  military  reputation 
disconnected  altogether  from  civil  pursuits.  And 
the  only  errors  of  his  administration — which,  after 
all,  were  unimportant — should  be  ascribed  to  his 
inexperience  in  public  affairs  and  his  unacquaint- 
ance  with  public  men ;  time  would  have  corrected 
them  had  he  lived  to  round  out  his  term.  His 

*  i  Coleman's  Crittenden,  363.  "He  was  firmly  and  I  believe 
honestly  persuaded,"  wrote  a  friend  soon  after  the  funeral,  "that 
the  Union  ought  to  be  dissolved."  Ib. 


350         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

cabinet  was  not  all  it  should  have  been,  and  while  he 
was  on  the  point  of  changing  it  death  intervened,  and 
the  regret  remains  that  he  had  not  changed  it  before. 
In  the  higher  aims  of  domestic,  as  well  as  foreign 
policy,  he  showed  the  best  qualities  of  an  administrator ; 
being  wise,  temperate,  sincere,  honest  as  the  day,  more 
than  loyal  to  the  Union,  because  he  loved  it  and  would 
have  laid  down  his  life  in  its  defence.  He  was  simple 
in  habits,  frank  in  manners,  with  a  genuineness  which 
impressed  all  who  came  in  contact  with  him,  and  a 
firmness  that  shunned  no  danger.  Though  not  by 
genius  or  habit  a  statesman,  he  saw  more  clearly  the 
bold  headlands  of  national  policy  through  the  mists 
that  were  gathering,  than  the  wisest  and  world-re 
nowned  of  our  statesmen  who  scarcely  condescended 
to  him  and  thought  their  vision  better.  Nor  did  it  take 
him  many  months  to  discern  that  what  the  country 
wished  and  needed  was  not  pacification  nor  the  plau 
sible  bargain  of  principles,  but  loyal  acquiescence  in 
nature  and  the  right.  A  slaveholder  himself,  he  yet 
felt  that  slavery  ought  not  to  extend  farther.  A 
soldier  of  the  Union,  he  stood  ready  to  lead  the  Union 
forces  in  his  own  person  if  his  own  section  rebelled, 
and  to  pour  out  his  blood  in  defence  of  the  flag. 

Personal  example  is,  after  all,  the  greatest  force 
which  can  elevate  or  degrade  a  government;  and  the 
best  of  personal  examples  is  that  of  honest  patriotism 
striving  to  be  right.  Taylor,  while  he  lived,  inspired 
firmness  for  freedom's  cause,  and  he  was  the  one  man 
before  whom  the  false  idealists  of  a  slave  confederacy 
quailed  with  fear.  Naturally,  then,  he  endeared  him 
self  to  the  common  people,  and  had  he  lived  there  is 
little  doubt  that  he  would  have  carried  the  policy  he 
had  at  heart.  It  was  the  most  practical;  it  depended 


DEATH  OF  TAYLOR  351 

the  least  upon  assertion  by  Congress.  But  the  key  of 
the  territorial  situation  was  lost  with  the  warrior  who 
grasped  it.  The  saying  had  long  been  current,  "Gen 
eral  Taylor  never  surrenders;"  and  his  first  surrender 
was  to  death.  His  last  appearance  in  life  was  fitly  on 
the  anniversary  of  his  country's  independence.  His 
last  official  act  was  to  proclaim  a  new  compact  with 
Great  Britain.  That  grim  conqueror,  who  had  never 
checked  his  military  renown,  forbade  him  the  proof  of 
statesmanship,  and  his  monument  must  remain  an  un 
finished  shaft. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  MILLARD  FILLMORE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirty-first  Congress.  July  9,  i8so-March  3, 
1851. — §  II.  Period  of  Thirty-second  Congress.  March  4, 
i8si-March  3,  1853. 

ROLL  back  the  inevitable  tide  for  ten  years  and 
we  may  estimate  the  effect  of  Taylor's  un 
timely  death  upon  American  politics.     The 
man  was  gone  on  whom  freedom's  cause  depended; 
there  was  no  leader  of  the  people  left  but  Congress,  and 
Congress  was  not  likely  to  resist  long  its  orators.    And 
now  for  a  space  the  marble-propped  cham- 
1850.        ber   vibrates   with   funeral   eloquence — with 
silvery    eulogies,     breathing    all    kindness, 
as  the  virtues  of  the  dead  are  recounted,  yet  all  the 
while  hinting  delicately  that  the  orator  himself  would 
have   made   the   better    President    for   times    so   tur 
bulent.      "There   were   circumstances    in    his    death," 
said    Webster,    mysteriously,    in    deep    and    solemn 
tones,    "so    favorable    for   his   own    fame   and   char 
acter,    so   gratifying   to    all   to   whom   he   was   most 
dear,  that  he  may  be  said  to  have  died  fortunately." 
Clay,  later,  paid  his  tribute  to  the  departed  as  "an 
honest  man  and  a  brave  man ;"  but  while  praising  him 
for  his  conduct  of  foreign  affairs,  he  spoke  with  reserve 
upon  his  domestic  administration. 

A  second  time  had  the  Whigs  chosen  a  President,  to 


NEW  WHIG  MISFORTUNE          353 

be  baffled  by  the  all-destroyer.  But  no  apostate  suc 
cession  was  to  be  their  present  misfortune.  Millard 
Fillmore  was  a  genuine  Whig  as  well  as  a  wise,  upright, 
and  incorruptible  statesman.  His  experience  with 
public  affairs,  and  his  knowledge  of  public  men,  were 
far  more  extensive  than  Taylor  had  brought  to  the 
chief  magistracy.  He  loved  the  Union  and  was  de 
voted  to  its  welfare.  And  besides  all  this,  his  inner 
convictions  were  anti-slavery;  he  had  been  nursed  and 
brought  up  in  that  quarter  of  an  agitating  State  where 
agitation  rocked  hardest.  For  all  this,  Fillmore' s  train 
ing,  his  temperament,  was  that  of  a  civilian,  not  bold, 
but  prudent.  His  disposition  was  conservative;  he 
could  not  create;  he  was  one  who  at  all  times  would 
rather  make  terms  than  face  an  enemy.  And  more  than 
this  he  appreciated  the  immense  difference  in  popular 
strength  between  an  elected  President  and  an  acci 
dental  one — between  an  Executive  who  could  face 
slaveholders  as  one  of  their  own  class,  and  an  Executive 
against  whom  slavery  would  fork  its  tongue  as  an  in 
truder.  Men  who  dared  not  more  than  to  threaten  the 
one,  would  have  opposed,  perhaps  impeached,  thwarted 
in  every  way,  the  other.  Fillmore,  then,  was  easily 
swayed  by  Webster,  Clay,  and  all  the  temporizing  in 
fluences  of  the  Whig  party.  Nor  should  we  fail  to 
recall  Fillmore' s  long  strife  with  Seward  for  predomi 
nance  in  their  common  State  and  neighborhood.  With 
his  lurking  jealousy  of  the  rival  who  had  diverted  a 
share  of  local  patronage  and  outstripped  him  so  quickly 
in  favor  at  the  White  House,  there  is  little  doubt  that 
during  the  splendid  debate  to  which  he  was  a  silent 
listener,  the  man  who  presided  over  the  Senate  had 
been  drifting,  almost  unconsciously,  into  the  current  of 
time-serving  truce.  So  true  is  it  that  under  our  system 


354         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

the  Vice-President  inclines  to  become  an  attractor  of 
counter-influences  within  the  party. 


The  North  had  humiliations  and  struggles  of  its  own 
with  reference  to  this  new  and  immutable  compact  of 
Congress.  Nor  took  it  long  to  discern  that  the  new 
fugitive  slave  act,  which  Southern  Unionists  seemed  to 
think  the  golden  link  of  loyalty,  was,  from  the  opposite 
standpoint,  the  most  damnable  in  the  chain.  It  was  not, 
perhaps,  the  weakest;  for  that,  in  more  remote  con 
sequences,  was  the  new  principle  now  grafted  upon  the 
territories,  whereby  Congress,  not  content  to  omit 
quietly  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  expressly  abnegated  its 
rights  of  guardianship  and  left  freedom  and  slavery 
to  antagonize  to  the  end.  The  mischief  of  that  new 
principle  was  not  apparent  for  years,  but  that  of  the 
fugitive  slave  act  was  palpable  at  once. 

It  is  but  just  to  our  slaveholding  brethren  to  admit 
that  they  seldom,  if  ever,  invoked  the  machinery  of  this 
obnoxious  law  for  fraudulent  enslavement.  Collision 
came  rather  at  the  point  where  free  soil  would  have 
shielded  the  long  resident  as  a  free  citizen,  despite  some 
claim  of  former  bondage.  The  fugitive  slave  act  to  all 
but  slave  States  was  detestable,  and  it  forced  the  general 
government  to  use  a  giant's  strength  like  a  giant.  The 
task  of  quenching  agitation  on  the  slavery  question  was 
formidable  enough  for  any  administration;  but  to 
quench  it  while  pouring  oil  on  the  flames  was  a  task 
herculean.  Yet  Fillmore  and  his  cabinet  did  not 
shrink  from  it.  In  the  division  of  Northern  Whigs 
which  now  ensued,  radicals  found  themselves  coalescing 
more  closely.  Large  public  meetings  called  in  favor  of 
Union,  and  the  "peace  measures,"  at  Boston,  New 


COMPROMISE  OF  1850  355 

York,  Philadelphia,  Nashville,  Cincinnati,  and  else 
where,  widened  the  breach  irrevocably.  Notable  citi 
zens  took  the  lead  in  reconciling  the  North  to  the  new 
compact — men  like  Rufus  Choate,  John  Sergeant,  and 
Richard  Rush.  Old  line  Whigs  and  Democrats  for  the 
time  approached  one  another;  conservatives  joined 
hands  to  put  down  the  radicals.  Letters  from  Webster, 
Clay,  Cass,  and  Woodbury  were  read  promiscuously 
at  such  gatherings ;  and  men  of  historical  lineage  were 
sought  out  to  preside,  from  Bunker  Hill  to  the  Her 
mitage.  No  union  possible  without  forbearance — this 
was  the  burden  of  their  appeal.  Crittenden,  the  Attor 
ney-General,  prepared  an  opinion  that  the  fugitive 
slave  act  was  constitutional.  Webster  contended  stren 
uously  that,  though  not  perfect,  nor  such  as  he  would 
have  framed,  it  was  a  law  of  the  land  and  ought  not 
even  to  be  amended.  "No  man,"  he  wrote  to  one  of 
these  gatherings,  with  a  fling  at  Seward,  "is  at  liberty 
to  set  up,  or  to  affect  to  set  up,  his  own  conscience  as 
above  the  law." 


The  sober  second  thought  of  the  people  at  length  sus 
tained  President  Fillmore  in  his  purpose  to  uphold  the 
peace  settlement  of  1850  as  a  final  and  com 
prehensive  one.     His  lack  of  personal  pre-        1852. 
tence,  his  clear  and  emphatic  expression,  gave 
force  to  his  approval  of  the  legislative  policy,  obnoxious 
though  the  latter  might  be  to  a  large  minority  of  both 
sections.      Republics  incline  to  temporize  with  prob 
lems  which  are  found  difficult  to  manage,  and  tempor 
izing  is  the  essence  of  all  government  which  is  carried 
on  by  popular  assemblies.     Few  turned  back  the  page 
far  enough  to  read  the  fate  of  Clay's  tariff  compromise 


356         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

of  1833,  so  prone  are  American  citizens  to  treat  the 
present  on  its  detached  merits.  Few  measured  the 
danger  of  granting  half  that  a  State  demands  upon  its 
open  threat  of  disloyalty.  Few  calculated  the  probable 
duration  of  a  settlement  based  upon  the  idea  that  the 
Union  had  ceased  to  expand,  and  that  sectional  pride 
would  not  resist  the  edicts  of  nature  nor  stretch  the 
national  boundaries.  This  fact,  at  least,  was  positive: 
that  the  whole  course  of  events  was  soon  reac 
tionary  under  the  impulse  of  the  new  compact.  The 
country  grew  sick  of  the  slavery  question  and  wished 
agitators  at  the  devil.  Good  men,  North  and  South, 
made  the  constitution  their  fetich  more  than  ever,  and, 
like  a  prudent  husband  who  is  yoked  with  an  irritable 
spouse,  they  forced  themselves  to  love  for  the  sake  of 
quiet. 


In  view  of  their  practical  concurrence,  after  much 
tribulation,  upon  the  vexed  problem  of  the  day — and 
since  both  acquiesced  in  the  sectional  pacification  of 
1850,  though  the  National  Whigs  were,  in  sentiment, 
hopelessly  divided  by  it — wherein,  after  all,  consisted 
now  the  fundamental  difference  between  Whig  and 
Democrat?  What  issue  was  there  left  between  these 
parties  upon  which  to  conduct  the  present  campaign? 
Little,  we  may  rest  assured.  The  intelligence  and  dis 
criminating  justice  of  the  American  people  were  flat 
tered  by  both  platforms;  the  limited  scope,  too,  of  the 
general  government,  and  the  reserved  rights  of 
States.  But  while  the  Whigs  called  still  for  encour 
agement  under  the  tariff  to  American  industry,  for  the 
liberal  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors,  Democrats 
rebuked  the  fostering  of  one  branch  of  industry  to  the 


DEMOCRATIC  POLICY  357 

detriment  of  another,  and  the  raising  of  more  revenue 
than  the  necessities  of  the  government  required. 
Nearly,  then,  as  national  parties  seemed  to  approach 
one  another,  and  devoted  as  both  might  be  deemed  to 
the  idea  that  the  people  were  the  fountain  of  sovereign 
power,  there  appeared  this  radical  diversity  of  senti 
ment  concerning  the  appropriate  sphere  of  government, 
that  the  Whigs  looked  rather  to  a  superintending  and 
beneficent  authority,  which  should  alleviate  burdens 
and  multiply  the  blessings  of  general  intercourse,  while 
Democrats  nourished  a  general  distrust  and  jealousy 
of  all  guiding  authority,  all  patronage,  and  held  that 
national  government  the  best  which  governed  the  least. 
But  this  "let  alone"  had  come  to  be  a  peculiarly 
Southern  phase  of  national  politics;  it  harmonized  with 
the  bald  and  slothful  development  of  these  staple-rais 
ing  States,  and  tended  above  all  things  to  place  State 
rights  foremost.  The  slave  oligarchy,  compact  and 
fearless,  gained  in  these  years  the  upper  hand  in  the 
Democratic  party,  by  giving  the  chief  honors  and 
patronage  to  Northern  men  who  could  carry  the  popu 
lous  States,  while  shaping  the  national  policy  to  its  own 
ends. 


The  Whig  cause  was  overcast  and  funereal  from  the 
start.     In  scarce  a  week  from  the  close  of  their  dis 
cordant  convention,   died   Henry   Clay,   the 
founder  and  inspiration  of  that  great  party,     juxn|2;9. 
prince  of  the  Senate   (to  use  a  title  of  the 
Augustan  age),  and  beyond  whatever  faults  of  char 
acter,  a  plastic  moulder  of  national  policy,  an  orator 
rich  and  ready,  and  a  sympathetic  leader  of  intelligent 
men,  such  as  the  world  has  rarely  seen.     The  funeral 


358         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

escort  which  bore  home  his  remains  from  the  capital 
city  where  his  last  sunshine  lingered  made  the  opening 
procession  of  this  Whig  canvass;  while  a  darker  de 
parture  marked  its  close — the  death  of  that  other  leader 
in  whom  the  party  originated. 

Daniel  Webster  had  been  in  failing  health,  oppressed 
with  years  and  the  cares  of  office,  and  buoyed  up 
chiefly  by  the  hope  of  attaining  the  reward  of  his  long- 
cherished  ambition.  His  defeat  at  the  Whig  conven 
tion — a  last  defeat  as  he  too  well  knew — was  more  than 
his  proud  spirit  could  bear ;  moreover,  its  circumstances, 
doubly  mortifying  from  the  defection  of  those  he  had 
served  not  less  than  of  those  he  had  deserted.  He  had 
bargained  away  his  moral  conviction  for  the  sake  of 
national  harmony;  had  parted  precious  and  life-long 
friendships  for  the  sake  of  pacifying  the  slave-masters; 
and  now  these  turned  their  backs  upon  him  after  using 
him  for  their  own  ends.  They  preferred  the  common 
place  Fillmore,  over  whose  administration  he  had 
poured  his  full  resplendence.  Clay,  of  all  allies,  had 
passed  his  dying  word  for  that  preference;  Critten- 
den's  cabinet  influence  had  gone  in  the  same  direction; 
Fillmore,  not  magnanimous  enough  to  stand  aside,  had 
consented.  Webster  felt  that  he  had  dragooned  New 
England  in  vain.  He  was  stunned,  bewildered,  unable 
to  carry  on  his  public  tasks  at  the  usual  place  or  with 
the  customary  composure.  To  some  of  the  Southern 
delegates  returning  home  he  betrayed  the  poignancy 
of  his  chagrin  over  their  defection.  He  sought  the 
refuge  of  his  lonely  home  near  the  resounding  surf, 
there  to  lay  himself  down  to  die,  with  only  nature  and 
unchanging  personal  friends  for  his  company.  Some 
of  these  last  would  have  put  him  before  the  people  as 
an  independent  candidate.  In  the  anger  of  his  own 


DOWNFALL  OF  THE  WHIGS       359 

grief  he  spurned  Scott  more  disloyally  than  he  had 
done  Taylor;  for  he  privately  advised  his  friends  to 
vote  for  Franklin  Pierce.  He  seemed  willing  that  the 
Whig  party  should  be  cast  into  the  same  grave  with  his 
disappointed  hopes.  And  thus  dismissing  the  world 
with  its  vain  strifes,  Webster  breathed  his 
last  while  the  political  battle  raged  fiercely  in  October  23. 
the  distance;  and  the  life  of  our  most  intel 
lectual  statesman,  the  man  of  heaviest  brain  and  most 
kingly  aspect,  ebbed  out  with  the  neighboring  tide. 
Nothing  that  he  uttered  in  his  last  hours  indicates  that 
what  he  had  done  for  fraternal  peace,  that  the  success 
of  those  compromise  measures  which  at  length  seemed 
positive,  brought  him  consoling  thoughts,  serene  tran 
quillity  at  the  last.  Whether  he  closed  his  eyes  in  the 
full  conviction  that  he  had  done  right  only  eternity  can 
reveal. 

Webster  died  the  victim  of  personal  disappointment. 
He  still  lives  in  American  memory,  and  deserves  to 
live,  as  statesman,  orator,  and  exemplar  of  the  national 
sentiment,  as  champion  of  the  Union  against  all  dis 
loyal  heresy.  Yet  his  image  and  memory  are  likely  to 
endure  in  generations  to  come,  as  the  image  and 
memory  of  one  who,  with  all  his  colossal  endowments, 
was  very  human.  Nature  was  always  stronger  with 
him  than  the  arts  of  discipline ;  and  this  Achilles  of  our 
civil  life,  dipped  early  into  the  Styx  of  national  poli 
tics,  had  yet  his  vulnerable  part. 

These  deaths  of  illustrious  leaders — and  particularly 
the  latter  and  less  expected  one — cast  a  pall  over  the 
Whig  canvass,  presaging  disastrous  defeat.  Under 
the  greatest  American  soldier  of  the  age,  albeit  a  sad 
miscalculator  in  politics,  the  Whig  party — or  that 
remnant  which  remained  faithful  to  regular  nominees 


360         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

— marched  to  a  Waterloo  defeat.    Franklin  Pierce,  the 

fainting  hero,  overwhelmed  the  proud  conqueror  of  the 

Montezumas.      The  first  Tuesday's  sun  of  November 

went  down  upon  a  shattered  and  discomfited 

November  2.  t 

national  party  never  more  to  rally,  but  des 
tined  to  disperse  in  local  fragments,  and  then  melt  into 
the  yeasty  waves  as  completely  as  Federalism  before  it. 
Whiggery,  it  is  true,  had  been  less  patrician,  less  dis 
trustful  of  the  people  than  Federalism ;  but  the  Federal 
ists  in  their  day  accomplished  much  for  history  that 
was  permanent,  while  the  Whigs — crushed  under  the 
incessant  weight  of  unparalleled  misfortunes — left 
nothing.  The  drift  of  American  politics,  in  spite  of  the 
best  navigators,  had  been  to  sectional  strife;  and  for 
guidance  through  such  dangers,  the  Whigs  had  proved 
too  humane  to  steer  in  the  one  direction  and  too  faint 
hearted  to  take  the  other.  The  party  fell  by  dissension 
and  by  its  terrible  propensity  to  misfortunes;  and  its 
epitaph  must  be  that  it  loved  the  Union  as  it  was  and 
sought  sincerely  to  preserve  it. 


Millard  Fillmore  left  supreme  office  with  this  wide- 
ranged  Union  flourishing  and  to  all  appearances  tran 
quil.     At  home,  as  he  could  fairly  claim, 
Americans  enjoyed  an  amount  of  happiness.      March, 
public  and  private,   such   as  probably  had 
never  fallen  to  the  lot  of  another  people — of  happiness, 
in  which  great  multitudes,  unlike  all  precedents  from 
the  Old  World,  felt  the  right  to  participate.    In  closing 
his  Presidential  term,  he  claimed  to  have  done  no  more 
than  to  discharge  its  duties  to  the  best  of  his  humble 
abilities  and  with  a  single  eye  to  the  public  good.     It 
would  be  invidious  to  deny  to  one  called  so  suddenly 


FILLMORE'S  CHARACTER        361 

and  so  unexpectedly  to  terrible  responsibilities  so 
modest  a  meed  of  public  gratitude.  Congress,  though 
not  in  political  sympathy  with  him,  rendered  perfunc 
tory  homage.  In  official  utterances  he  had  thrice 
blessed  already  the  compromise  of  1850  as  the  final 
reconcilement  of  slavery  and  freedom.  Benedictions 
flowed  down  this  last  of  ruling  Whigs,  like  the  oil  on 
Aaron's  beard  and  skirts,  as  he  stepped  back  to  the 
grade  of  private  citizen.  In  the  hour  of  parting  saluta 
tion,  the  members  of  his  cabinet,  dignified  and  able 
men,  certified  in  writing  to  his  uniform  courtesy,  and 
their  high  appreciation  of  his  services  and  personal 
character.  Could  bland  appreciation  of  this  kind  fix 
Fillmore's  seat  among  the  permanent  benefactors  of 
mankind?  His  administration  had  been  instrumental 
to  the  allied  purposes  of  that  noble  pair.  Clay  and 
Webster,  who,  in  their  lives,  made  Presidents,  though 
they  were  none.  He  himself  originated  in  office  noth 
ing  that  was  accomplished,  and  accomplished  nothing 
but  what  others  originated.  Fillmore's  personal  fol 
lowers  were  not  among  the  boldest,  the  soundest,  the 
clearest  sighted  of  the  free  States,  but  rather  among 
the  timid  and  obsequious.  Such  friends  he  preferred 
in  the  patronage,  and  was  chieftain  of  the  "silver 
grays."  This  handsome  personage,  whose  deportment 
was  excellent  and  upon  whom  so  many  looked  for  the 
next  few  years  as  the  surviving  associate  of  buried 
giants  and  the  last  type  of  Washingtonian  politics,  law, 
order,  and  high  respectability,  saw  actually  into  the 
national  situation  about  as  far  as  one  might  hold  out 
his  hand  before  his  eyes;  and  by  that  same  length  of 
measurement  must  be  bounded  his  permanent  fame. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

ADMINISTRATION    OF   FRANKLIN   PIERCE. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirty-third  Congress.  March  4,  i853-March  3, 
1855. — §  II.  Period  of  Thirty-fourth  Congress.  March  4, 
iSss-March  3,  1857. 

WHEN  the  new  year  opened  and  Congress 
reassembled  after  the  holidays.   Franklin 
Pierce  stood   strong  in  the  general   con 
fidence  of  the  people  of  both  sections.     Swept  into  the 
Presidency  as  he  had  been  by  a  great  popular  uprising, 
men  of  all  parties  who  knew  nothing  of  his  personal 
fitness  or  antecedents  had  rallied  to  his  sup- 
1854.        port  with  zeal  and  even  with  enthusiasm. 
Juvenile  in  appearance,  with  a  tinge  of  sad 
ness  occasioned  by  domestic  sorrow,  finely  bearing  him 
self  hitherto  on  all  public  occasions,  most  statesmen 
looked  upon  him  as  one  who  would  lead  the  people  into 
new  and  green  pastures  of  peace  and  conciliation.    The 
conditions  under  which  he  began  were  certainly  favor 
able  to  such  hopes;  for  the  Whigs  were  now  dismem 
bered  and  destroyed,  and  he  stood  the  chosen  leader  of 
an  overwhelming  majority.     But  it  is  a  foible  of  every 
democracy  to  make  pets  of  the  plausible  and  untried, 
and  in  its  susceptible  mood  to  invest  its  favorite  with 
virtues  and  talents  which  he  never  possessed;  for  the 
public  is  like  an  ardent  lover,  and  looks  through  a 
highly  refracting  medium. 


KANSAS-NEBRASKA  BILL  363 

Why  were  our  Northern  people  so  easily  self- 
deceived?  Why  had  they  not  perceived  that  political 
signs  already  pointed  to  pleasing  the  South  beyond 
measure?  Southern  expansion,  however,  was  a  slow 
and  uncertain  project,  and  a  more  immediate  benefac 
tion  of  slave  territory  was  in  order  from  the  sycophantic 
politicians.  In  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  leaps  forward 
the  swift  generator  of  new  national  discontent,  new 
parties.  Its  originator  was  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  am 
bitious,  forceful,  and  subservient;  he  had  put  his 
shoulder  to  the  wheel  of  tropical  annexation,  a  team 
which  slavery  drove;  but  now  he  mounted  his  own 
chariot.  The  bell  of  opportunity  strikes,  and  the  fog 
now  lifting  shows  the  great  pacification  of  1850,  no 
longer  the  land's  end  of  strife,  as  the  charts  had  de 
scribed  it,  but  the  rounding-point  into  a  vast  and 
illimitable  jungle  of  sectional  controversy,  where  tigers 
roar  and  scorpions  stiffen  to  attack. 

The  Senate  was  the  scene  of  this  agitating  discovery. 
Here,  without  warning  or  suggestion,  and  as  though 
selfish  for  the  sole  paternity  of  his  scheme,  Douglas,  as 
chairman  of  the  committee  of  territories,  reported  on 
the  4th  of  January  a  bill  for  the  territorial  government 
of  Nebraska,  a  region  embraced  under  the  old  Louisi 
ana  purchase,  and  apportioned  to  freedom  by  the 
famous  Missouri  Compromise  act  of  1820.  One  of 
the  sections  of  this  bill,  copying  the  language  used 
under  the  late  compact  of  1850  with  reference  to  Utah 
and  New  Mexico,  provided  that  whenever  Nebraska 
should  be  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  State  or  States, 
it  should  come  in  "with  or  without  slavery,"  as  its  con 
stitution  at  the  time  of  admission  might  prescribe.  "A 
proper  sense  of  patriotic  duty,"  explained  Douglas, 
"enjoins  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  a  strict  adher- 


364         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ence  to  the  principles,  and  even  a  literal  adoption  of 
the  enactments,  of  the  adjustment  of  1850." 


Four  years  had  passed  since  the  consummation  of 
fraternal  unison,  when  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  that  pro 
vocative  of  intestine  strife,  was  laid  under  the  vaults 
of  the  Capitol.  And  now  was  renewed  the  moral  agita 
tion,  which  had  been  soothed  to  rest  with  so  much  diffi 
culty,  in  deadly  and  terrible  earnest.  No  act  of  pre 
tended  grace  was  ever  engrossed  upon  our  government 
parchment  so  utterly  uncalled  for,  and  at  the  same  time 
so  despicable  and  so  thoroughly  subversive  in  the  end 
of  all  that  its  originators  professed  to  accomplish  by  it. 
That  it  was  uncalled  for,  and  in  its  concession  to 
slavery  equally  a  surprise  to  North  and  South,  no  one 
ever  had  the  hardihood  to  dispute ;  and  the  tone  of  the 
President's  December  message  is  proof  at  least  that  no 
such  upheaval  of  internal  policy  was  then  contemplated. 
The  organization  of  Nebraska  territory  had  been  pend 
ing  earlier,  and  bills  previously  introduced  were  of 
the  usual  form  and  purport ;  not  a  single  petition  from 
the  people  of  either  section  prayed  Congress  to  repeal 
the  Missouri  settlement,  or  to  organize  this  interior 
territory  upon  any  other  basis  than  the  basis  of  that 
settlement  which,  for  more  than  thirty  years,  had  been 
peacefully  acquiesced  in.  The  despicableness  of  this 
new  scheme  was  two-fold :  it  made  freedom  and  slavery 
coequal  from  the  national  point  of  view,  and  it  abro 
gated  a  solemn  compact.  That  it  subverted  its  own 
ends  will  appear  as  this  narrative  continues. 

What  possible  motive,  then,  founded  in  a  deep  sense 
of  public  honor  and  responsibility,  could  have  induced 
Northern  statesmen,  like  Douglas  and  Franklin  Pierce, 


SQUATTER  SOVEREIGNTY        365 

to  come  forward  with  this  boon  which  its  recipients 
had  never  asked  ?  Nothing  deeper,  we  may  feel  as 
sured,  than  sycophancy  to  the  slave  power,  and  the 
ambition  which  hoped  to  thrive  by  it.  We  had  heard 
before  of  Northern  statesmen,  the  representatives  of 
free  soil  and  a  free  constituency,  who  bowed  and  bent 
to  that  yoke,  who  yielded  under  pressure;  but  Douglas 
was  the  first  of  freedom's  children  who  ran  to  throw 
open  the  gate  to  barbarism.  America  may  smile  now  at 
the  pathos  and  grandiloquence  which  invoked,  in  the 
name  of  justice,  equal  privilege  and  popular  sover 
eignty,  the  right  of  one  class  of  human  beings  to  hold 
another  class,  of  different  color,  enthralled  like  dumb 
cattle.  Of  constitutional  argument  against  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  the  courts  were  soon  to  give  enough, 
for  what  our  fundamentals  of  Union  leave  undefined, 
robed  dignitaries  will  define  by  their  own  politics ;  and, 
if  slavery  infected  one  limb  of  the  government,  it  spread 
easily  to  another.  But  of  that  argument,  as  yet,  the 
political  leaders  were  timorous.  Douglas  would  gladly 
have  rested  on  his  first  base,  and  given  to  the  Missouri 
Compromise  a  tacit  quietus.  Jefferson  Davis,  too,  was 
hampered  by  the  recollection  that  the  extension  of  that 
compromise  line  to  the  Pacific  had  been  his  platform  in 
1850.  The  Missouri  compact,  if  not  an  ideal  one,  had 
given  to  freedom  a  share,  at  least,  of  the  inheritance; 
it  established  good  within  certain  confines,  like  that 
first  of  territorial  compromises,  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
which,  had  it  passed  as  Jefferson  originally  framed  it, 
would  have  presently  given  the  whole  domain  to  free 
dom,  both  north  and  south  of  the  Ohio.  That  hand 
somer  scope  was  then  prevented,  because  States  south 
of  Virginia  reserved  the  rights  of  slavery  for  the  terri 
tory  they  ceded  to  the  Union;  and  Tennessee,  Mis- 


3  66         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

sissippi,  and  Alabama  grew  up  slave  States  accord 
ingly. 

"Give  the  fresh  acreage  henceforth  to  wheat  and 
thistles,  roses  and  weeds" — this  was  the  magnanimity 
of  the  new  gospel  of  popular  or  squatter  sovereignty. 
The  deeper  danger  of  Clay's  latest  compromise,  we  have 
already  seen,  was  in  admitting  that  new  territorial  fal 
lacy,  though  the  fugitive-slave  act  caused  the  more 
instant  irritation.  "With  or  without  slavery,"  that 
optional  policy  which  the  compromise  of  1850  asserted 
over  new  soil  wholly  and  indisputably  belonging  to  the 
United  States  was  sure  to  breed  trouble,  not  only 
when  its  settlement  should  begin  in  earnest,  but  when 
ever  another  acquisition  came  into  the  arms  of  the 
Union.  More  mischievous  by  far  did  the  precedent 
actually  prove,  under  the  claim  now  set  up  by  the 
authors  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act,  that  it  retroacted 
upon  the  earlier  territory  of  the  Louisiana  purchase — 
that  it  annulled  the  sacred  pledge  of  1820.  Such  was  the 
argument  in  which  Davis  took  afterwards  a  cynical 
delight,  and  which  Douglas  wielded  as  a  two-edged 
sword.  Wicked  and  impudent  sophism ;  and  could  only 
Clay  or  Webster  have  left  his  grave  and  stalked  into  the 
Senate-chamber,  his  look  would  have  turned  the  man 
who  uttered  it  into  stone.  Seward,  in  debate,  had  ap 
pealed  to  the  Southern  Senators  before  him  who  sat  in 
this  chamber  now,  as  four  years  ago,  to  say  whether 
any  one  of  them  had  dreamed  that  the  compromise  of 
1850  abrogated  or  impaired  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise;  they  were  silent.  He  adjured  them  to  say 
whether  Clay  or  Webster,  or  either  one  of  them,  had  so 
intended  when  procuring  that  compromise;  and  these 
fellow-members  were  silent  again.  Grant,  if  we  must, 
that  one  Congress  cannot  bind  forever — and,  if  that 


COMPACT  OF  1820  BROKEN        367 

rule  be  good,  the  later  compromise  was  no  more  sacred 
than  the  earlier  one — yet  the  moral  force  of  the  Mis 
souri  settlement  remained;  slavery  had  received  her 
equivalent  under  it  in  Missouri  and  Arkansas,  and  the 
vacant  territories  now  organized  belonged  of  right  to 
freedom.  Retroaction,  in  fine,  has  no  part  in  settling 
domestic  more  than  foreign  controversies  of  such  a 
character.  In  either  case,  we  seek,  not  symmetry,  but 
what  the  existing  exigency  requires.  The  settlement 
composes  the  matters  of  strife  which  are  brought  ex 
pressly  into  it;  immediate  convenience  and  necessity 
are  its  object;  it  seeks  to  close  new  wounds,  not  to 
reopen  old  ones.  As  well  go  back  to  readjust  the  north 
east  boundary  with  Great  Britain,  after  concluding  the 
Oregon  frontier,  because  the  principle  of  the  later  treaty 
was  a  different  one,  as  to  unsettle  the  territorial  status 
of  our  Louisiana  purchase,  once  solemnly  prescribed, 
for  the  sake  of  making  it  harmonize  in  principle  with 
that  which  was  set  upon  the  domain  we  conquered 
afterwards  from  Mexico. 

The  convenient  logic  of  non-intervention  in  the  ter 
ritories  must  have  been  peculiarly  captivating  to  North 
ern  Presidential  aspirants  of  the  era  who  wished  to  face 
in  two  directions.  Slaveholding  members,  especially 
when  the  debate  began,  were  disposed  to  be  passive 
and  accept  the  gift  of  the  gods;  they  did  not  wish  to 
repudiate  the  Missouri  settlement  without  Northern 
concurrence.  But  when  one  Northern  Senator  put  the 
saddle  upon  this  dogma,  and  another  the  bridle,  while 
a  Northern  President  obsequiously  offered  the  stirrup, 
Southern  chivalry  acted  by  its  instincts  when  it  be 
strode  the  steed  to  ride  it. 

The  consummation  of  this  Kansas-Nebraska  plot, 


368         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

which  a  few  ambitious  leaders  had  concocted,  shook 
the  free  States  once  more  to  their  centres 
Ma'y-fcpt.  with  just  indignation.  Slavery  was  at  length 
disclosed  as  an  aggressive  force  bent  upon 
dominating  the  policy  of  the  American  continent. 
Thousands  of  fair-minded  citizens,  who  had  been  in 
credulous,  were  at  last  convinced  that  mere  abstinence 
from  agitation  and  intermeddling  would  neither  save 
the  Union  nor  satisfy  the  Southerners.  Northern 
Whigs,  not  too  abject  to  value  their  moral  self-respect, 
felt  that  they  had  compromised  enough,  and  more  than 
enough;  that  pious  preaching  and  cowardly  palliation 
would  make  us,  if  we  went  on  thus,  a  nation  of  hypo 
crites.  Without  the  help  of  Southern  Whigs,  their  late 
party  associates — men  like  Pearce,  Badger,  Jones, 
Toombs,  the  plumed  Stephens  and  the  faltering  Clay 
ton — that  treacherous  bill  would  never  have  passed. 
"Repudiate  such  fraternity,"  was  the  cry;  "throw  old 
party  considerations  to  the  winds,  and  appeal  to  the 
honest  people  of  the  free  States,  without  distinction  of 
politics/'  And  calling  God  to  witness  the  justice  of 
their  cause,  the  better  remnant  of  the  Northern  Whigs 
fled  from  the  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  where  old  com 
pacts  were  smoking  in  the  flames.  Anti-slavery  Demo 
crats,  Free  Soilers,  all  who  would  unite  with  them  to 
fight  the  Dagon  of  slave  aggrandizement  under  the 
shield  and  banner  of  the  constitution,  were  brothers. 
No  matter  that  some  were  scrupulous  of  consequences, 
while  others  hoped  in  time  to  make  the  universe  free; 
their  common  political  ground  was  loyal  and  legitimate 
resistance  to  slavery  extension  into  free  national  terri 
tory.  All  opponents  of  slave  extension  might  meet  on 
this  common  platform. 

The  project  for  fusing  men  of  all  the  old  parties  who 


NEW  PARTY  MOVEMENTS         369 

were  opposed  to  slavery  extension  into  a  new  or  anti- 
Nebraska  party  developed  rapidly  at  the  North.  Free 
Soilers,  old  line  Whigs,  Wilmot-Proviso  Democrats, 
men  at  the  antipodes  of  sentiment,  so  far  as  the  cause 
of  practical  emancipation  was  concerned,  came  into 
concert.  But  the  process  was  necessarily  gradual  and 
tentative ;  affairs  were  not  yet  ripe  for  national  concert ; 
and  the  States  and  Congressional  districts  were  this 
year  the  proper  places  for  activity. 

In  tracing  the  growth  and  influence  of  national 
parties,  we  must  now  take  cognizance  of  the  Native- 
American  or  Know-Nothing  organization.  This  was 
a  sort  of  exhalation,  arising  from  the  decay  of  old 
parties  and  putrid  national  issues;  it  served  as  a  brief 
phenomenon  of  the  times  and  then  passed  off.  Like 
anti-Masonry,  its  soap-bubble  burst  in  the  effort  to 
blow  up  to  the  size  of  a  Presidential  factor.  But  some 
such  political  diversion  suited  quite  tolerably  the  mood 
of  that  huge  fraction  of  the  people,  loyal  but  disaffected 
on  the  usual  issues,  who  felt  just  now  political  orphan 
age.  During  that  twelvemonth  of  delusive  harmony 
which  was  broken  so  rudely  by  the  discord  of  the  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  strife,  defeated  Whigs  and  rebellious 
Democrats  plunged  thoughtlessly  by  the  thousands  into 
this  new  excitement  of  Native  Americanism,  and  were 
led  on  eventually  step  by  step  until  they  found  them 
selves  sworn  members  of  a  dark-lantern  order,  the 
opposite  of  anti-Masonry.  The  order  was  a  secret  one, 
popularly  called  "Know-Nothings,"  because  its  mem 
bers,  when  questioned  as  to  its  methods  and  principles, 
were  sworn  to  profess  their  entire  ignorance.  Abuses 
in  the  administration  of  large  cities  more  especially 
they  proposed  to  rectify  by  excluding  foreigners  from 
office.  They  revived  the  bitter  spirit  of  intolerance 


370         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

against  the  Roman  Catholic  Church — such  as  ten  years 
before  had  been  shown  in  the  riots  of  Charlestown  and 
Philadelphia — by  representing  it  as  foreign,  the  hand 
maid  of  popular  ignorance,  and  bent  on  chaining  Amer 
ica  to  the  throne  of  the  Vatican. 


Foreign  relations  for  the  next  six  years  are  dwarfed 
and  overshadowed  by  the  tremendous  struggle  for  civil 

preponderance  which  now  ensued  between 
1855.  the  irreconcilable  forces  of  freedom  and 

slavery.  That  domestic  struggle  culminated 
during  this  same  brief  space  of  time  in  the  political 
triumph  of  the  one,  followed  promptly  by  the  appeal  of 
the  other  to  disunion  and  the  sword  of  civil  war.  What 
most  absorbed  public  attention  in  those  important  years 
must  now  command  ours  as  we  retrace  the  course  of 
portentous  events.  As  for  that  cormorant  appetite  for 
seizing  weak  sovereignties  to  the  southward  and  incor 
porating  them  with  the  American  Union — that  hungry 
zeal  to  extend  a  protectorate  over  Central  America,  to 
annex  Cuba,  to  split  off  new  sections  of  Mexican  ter 
ritory  fringing  upon  our  national  borders — that  whole 
misguided  policy  of  robbery  and  subjugation  which 
seeks  to  conceal  its  cruel  features  under  the  mask  of 
manifest  destiny — its  symptoms  become  of  secondary 
consequence.  External  and  forced  expansion  towards 
the  tropics  was  but  one  element  of  the  cotton  slave 
holders'  policy  to  propagate  their  peculiar  institutions, 
or,  at  least,  to  keep  slavery  in  good  countenance  against 
what  seemed  to  them  the  meddlesome  philanthropy  of 
mankind.  It  had  started  out  with  this  Democratic  ad 
ministration  as  the  predominant  element;  but  the  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  bill  of  Douglas,  which  gave  slavery  an 


STRUGGLE  IN  KANSAS  371 

unexpected  entrance  into  freedom's  solemn  reserva 
tions,  distracted  the  glut  of  distant  conquest.  The  wolf 
grew  more  ravenous  than  ever;  but,  ravenous  in  two 
different  directions,  he  roused  up  enemies  too  mighty 
for  him. 

Kansas  now  becomes  the  foreground  of  public  inter 
est,  the  battle-field  where  freedom  and  slavery  gird  up 
their  loins  and  contend  for  the  mastery.  Of  the  two 
territories,  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  both  of  which  were 
set  apart  for  the  new  experiment  of  popular  sov 
ereignty,  desecrated  and  driven  from  the  sanctuary  of 
that  former  decree  which  prohibited  slavery  altogether, 
Kansas  was  the  more  southerly,  and  from  its  situation 
the  more  suitable  for  planting  institutions  of  bondage. 
It  occupied  nearly  the  same  parallel  as  Virginia,  and 
lay  due  west  of  the  slave  State  of  Missouri,  whose 
boundaries  were  next  adjacent.  This  whole  interior 
region  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  had  hitherto  remained 
practically  unsettled  and  little  known ;  but  its  invitation 
was  to  agriculture,  and  peaceful  rivers  meandered 
through  its  soft  scenery. 

Kansas  presented  a  tame  and  uniform  aspect  of 
gently  undulating  ridges  and  valleys;  its  territory,  as 
now  defined,  extending  northward  from  our  Indian 
reservations  to  the  fortieth  parallel  of  latitude,  and 
west  from  the  State  of  Missouri  to  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains.  In  this  broad  parallelogram  was  embraced  an 
area  reckoned  at  about  126,000  square  miles.  At  the 
passage  of  the  Douglas  bill,  Kansas  was  an  Indian 
reservation;  and  the  fact  that  Indians  would  be  de 
spoiled  of  their  rightful  domains  by  erecting  this  terri 
tory  was  urged  very  strongly  in  debate  by  Everett, 
Bell,  Houston,  and  others,  who,  timorous  on  the  main 
issue  involved  in  the  bill,  laid  strong  hold  upon  second- 


372         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ary  objections.  About  some  scattered  missions  here  of 
the  Southern  Methodist  Church,  and  on  the  farms  of  a 
few  capricious  squatters,  slaves  appear  to  have  been 
worked  for  several  years  previously.  Had  Congress 
passed  the  territorial  act  anticipated,  in  compliance 
with  the  restrictions  of  1820,  that  abuse  would  have 
been  easily  expelled.  But  now  this  compromise  was 
rescinded,  and  Kansas  might  be  admitted  as  a  State, 
"with  or  without  slavery,"  according  to  the  option  of 
its  inhabitants  hereafter. 


The  national  convention  of  the  new  Republican  party 
assembled  at  Philadelphia,  June  17,  1856,  pursuant  to 

the  call  of  a  Pittsburg  meeting  of  February 
1856.  22,  whose  invitation  was  freely  extended  to 

all  who  thought  alike  upon  the  new  crisis  of 
affairs,  "without  regard  to  past  political  differences  or 
divisions."  Old  Whigs,  Wilmot-Proviso  Democrats, 
and  Free  Soilers  came  together,  but  the  slave  States  in 
general  held  haughtily  back.  Henry  S.  Lane,  of  In 
diana,  was  chosen  chairman ;  and,  in  a  platform  full  of 
felicitous  phrases,  the  convention,  strongly  affirming 
its  allegiance  to  the  constitution,  the  Union,  and  the 
rights  of  States,  laid  down  that  Congress  had  sov 
ereign  power  over  the  national  territories,  and  ought  to 
exercise  that  power  not  to  assist  slavery,  but  to  pro 
hibit  it.  An  informal  ballot  being  had  for  candidates, 
John  C.  Fremont,  of  California,  the  pathfinder,  led 
strongly  for  President,  and  nearly  all  the  votes  being 
cast  in  his  favor  on  a  first  formal  ballot,  his  nomination 
was  made  unanimous.  For  Vice-President,  a  conserva 
tive  citizen,  William  L.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey,  was 
nominated  in  the  same  harmonious  spirit. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY          373 

True  was  it,  in  a  physical  sense,  that  the  present  Re 
publican  party  began  by  being  geographical.  But  this 
was  from  the  force  of  accidental  circumstances,  and  be 
cause  the  South  had  departed  from  the  faith  of  the 
fathers,  and  refused  either  to  have  emancipation  dis 
cussed  or  to  confine  the  slave  system  to  the  fifteen 
States  in  which  it  now  existed.  In  the  truly  enlight 
ened  sense  it  was  slavery  that  was  sectional  and  geo 
graphical,  while  freedom  was  national  and  universal. 
And  yet,  in  the  prevailing  opinion  of  the  voting  mass, 
North  as  well  as  South,  Republicanism  this  year  was 
doomed  to  defeat;  such  was  the  reverence  felt  for 
Union,  as  influenced  by  long  precedent  and  the  equi 
librium  of  systems. 

"We  have  lost  a  battle,"  was  the  comment  of  a  Re 
publican  organ  on  the  day  after  election ;  "the  Bunker 
Hill  of  the  new  struggle  for  freedom  is  past ;  the  Sara 
toga  and  Yorktown  are  yet  to  be  achieved."  And 
surely,  when  these  electoral  results  were  fully  reckoned, 
they  might  well  have  carried  dismay  to  the  citadel  of 
pro-slavery  strength.  Never  had  so  great  a  work  been 
done  by  a  political  party  within  the  first  year  of  its  birth, 
against  deep  and  inveterate  prejudices  which  were  too 
irrational  not  to  diminish,  should  provocation  to  free 
sentiment  continue. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  BUCHANAN. 

§  I.  Period  of  Thirty-fifth  Congress.  March  4,  i857-March  3, 
1859.— §  II.  Period  of  Thirty-sixth  Congress.  March  4,  1859- 
March  3,  1861. 

HUMAN  ambition  is  the  constant  motive  force 
of  public  events,  the  staple  of  historical  nar 
ration.  And  the  world's  experience  shows 
that  the  meaner  ambition  of  place  for  the  sake  of  power 
and  pelf  dominates  men's  minds  more  than  the  desire 
to  use  high  station  for  the  good  of  the  governed.  In  a 
fierce  and  fighting  age,  one  wades  through  slaughter  to 
reach  the  supreme  distinction;  while  under  the  soften 
ing  influences  of  a  settled  and  peaceful  government, 
whose  prizes  are  awarded  by  the  general  suffrage,  his 
constant  temptation  is  to  resort  to  corrupt,  insidious, 
and  flattering  arts  for  gaining  promotion  from  his 
fellow-citizens.  Among  statesmen  struggling  for  im 
mediate  popularity,  even  the  noblest  are  in  danger  of 
weakening  in  the  high  principles  which  their  hearts  tell 
them  are  right,  while  the  coarser-grained  grovel  and 
fawn  obsequiously,  as  though  the  title  to  superiority 
on  their  part  involved  no  gift  of  discernment  beyond 
the  common  level,  or  as  panderers  to  the  particular  lust 
which  those  who  can  elevate  them  to  office  wish  grati 
fied. 

In  the  American  days  we  are  describing,  the  fountain 
of  national  honors  was  in  full  possession  of  the  Demo- 


DEMOCRACY  PERVERTED          375 

cratic  party — a  party  whose  deepest  principles  had 
splendid  vigor  and  vitality,  but  whose  immediate  policy 
had  become  dangerously  perverted.  That  perversion 
was  owing  to  the  new  crusade  slavery  was  urging 
against  the  enlightenment  of  the  age;  and  the  slave 
power,  the  oligarchy  of  human  capital,  now  ruled  the 
Democratic  party,  the  fountain  of  honors,  and  the 
citadel  of  national  strength.  The  moral  opposition  of 
the  world  only  whetted  slavery's  desire  to  overrule  that 
opposition ;  and  it  grew  tyrannous  and  exacting  in  these 
days,  to  the  verge  of  rebellion.  It  was  the  Praetorian 
band  which  fixed  and  unfixed  administrations,  and  like 
its  Roman  prototype,  made  up  for  inferiority  in  num 
bers  by  compact  strength,  discipline,  and  unity  of  pur 
pose.  How  many  political  leaders  of  these  times  bent 
to  its  iron  dictates,  and  in  consequence  sank  into  their 
graves,  moral  and  corruptible,  with  honors  as  earthy 
as  their  epitaphs.  Pierce,  Cass,  Douglas,  and  hun 
dreds  of  others  less  conspicuous,  are  of  that  number; 
and  the  record  of  a  new  four  years  will  constrain  us 
to  add  Buchanan.  It  is  something  for  fame  to  have 
filled  high  stations — to  have  heaped  office  upon  office, 
performed  \veighty  functions,  dispensed  wide  patron 
age;  these  are  among  the  good  things  which  are  en 
joyed  in  this  life  and  exhausted.  But  where  is  post 
humous  fame,  where  is  the  gratitude  of  coming  genera 
tions,  when  one's  sordid  ambition  has  been  confined  to 
making  himself  solid  with  the  ruling  and  transitory 
influences  which  enable  him  to  rise,  and  he  leaves  to 
posterity  neither  the  inspiration  of  a  great  cause  nor  a 
great  example? 


Rebellion  in  Utah — that  far-off  territory  where  a 


376         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

population  of  aliens  submitted  to  a  strange  hierarchy — 
was  an  issue  that  forced  comparisons  with  Kansas.  It 
was  less  the  suppression  of  polygamous  practices  that 
our  administration  cared  for — for  the  Republicans 
might  engross  all  moral  agitation  for  their  own  party 
benefit — than  to  keep  these  strange  settlers  obedient  to 
the  constitution  and  the  laws.  Even  in  the  latter  sense 
alone,  Utah  contradicted  that  pompous  formula  of  non 
intervention  by  the  general  government  which  had  been 
preached  up  so  strongly  for  Kansas.  For  what  boots 
it  to  spill  the  nation's  blood  and  treasure  in  acquiring 
new  territory,  that  hostile  and  treacherous  systems  may 
be  planted  and  reared  there  by  those  who  colonize? 
National  indulgence  here  had  made  Mormonism  more 
defiant  and  disaffected  to  the  Union.  All  the  tenets 
and  policy  of  that  church,  under  its  despotic  leaders, 
had  tended  to  secure  an  Israelitish  seclusion,  in  con 
tempt  of  all  external  and  temporal  authority.  To  this 
would-be  "State  of  Deseret"  President  Fillmore  had 
assigned  Brigham  Young,  the  spiritual  head  of  the 
church,  as  territorial  governor;  and  by  1857,  when  a 
Democratic  President  showed  the  disposition  to  apply 
the  usual  temporal  rule  of  rotation  to  the  office,  Young 
was  rebellious,  and  the  whole  Mormon  population,  re 
fusing  allegiance  to  any  one  but  their  consecrated  head, 
began  to  drill  and  gird  on  their  armor  for  resistance. 
Judges  of  the  territorial  courts  had  to  flee  for 
1857-58.  their  lives ;  justice,  which  had  long  been  tam 
pered  with  to  absolve  church  members  from 
punishment,  was  deprived  of  process.  It  was  charged 
that  the  Mormon  hierarchy  had  leagued  with  Indian 
tribes  to  impel  them  to  atrocities  against  the  Gentile 
inhabitants,  while  their  own  Danites,  or  destroying 
angels,  were  secretly  set  apart  and  bound  by  horrid 


MORMONISM  IN  UTAH  377 

oath  to  pillage  and  murder  such  as  made  themselves 
obnoxious  to  the  theocracy.  This  was  popular  sov 
ereignty  with  a  vengeance.  But  in  1858  that  rebellion 
was  put  forcibly  down. 


Douglas  and  Lincoln  were  formidable  adversaries  of 
each  other,  and  a  long  linking  of  events  had  some 
how  opposed  them  in  an  antagonism  which 
was  permanent  and  inveterate.  With  a  1858. 
pathos  almost  bitter,  Lincoln  recalled  that 
while  through  the  long  years  they  had  pursued 
ambition  by  their  different  methods  he  had  thus 
far  failed,  his  rival  had  gained  splendid  success 
and  a  name  that  filled  the  whole  Union  with  applause; 
and  yet  honors  that  he  said  he  would  not  have  pur 
chased  at  the  price  paid  for  them.  With  all  his  popular 
qualities,  his  great  natural  parts,  the  real  love  of 
country  which  mingled  no  doubt  with  all  his  dross  of 
sycophancy  and  spread-eagleism,  so  that  he  could  stir 
the  heart  by  forceful  appeal  to  patriotic  feelings,  Doug 
las,  no  doubt,  as  Lincoln  regarded  him,  was  cunning 
and  unscrupulous  in  obtaining  his  ends.  Lincoln  him 
self  was  a  sagacious  politician,  and  not  above  advancing 
his  own  ends,  where  he  could  do  so  honorably;  but 
earnestness  grew  upon  him  with  years,  and  the  new 
Free-Soil  movement  which  followed  upon  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  gave  him  a  cause  which  en 
listed  his  whole  heart,  adding  that  incentive  to  leader 
ship  and  mastery  of  his  subject  which  the  economic 
topics  of  Whig  policy,  his  first  political  love,  had  ill 
supplied.  Strong  impulse  to  a  self-made  man  supplies 
the  place  of  education.  Lincoln,  now  in  the  full  ma 
turity  of  his  powers,  was  without  comprehensive 


378         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

knowledge  of  public  affairs ;  but  with  a  strong  craving 
to  dive  into  the  depths  of  the  truth,  and  a  well-settled 
conviction  that  American  slavery  was  wrong  in  itself 
and  injuriously  spreading,  he  had  plunged  into  the 
study  of  the  question  in  all  its  historical,  moral,  and 
constitutional  aspects,  and  brought  up  a  wealth  of  rich 
argument  and  illustration,  which  his  lucid  mind  set 
forth  in  a  quaint  and  original  but  strongly  persuasive 
manner — persuasive  most  of  all  with  the  plain  multi 
tude,  with  the  millions  of  common  men  throughout  the 
North  with  whom  at  this  time  Lincoln  was  in  entire 
sympathy,  and  who,  like  himself,  wished  to  reconcile 
loyalty  to  the  Union  and  justice  to  Southern  rights  with 
obedience  to  a  better  law  divine.  In  such  minds  grew 
up  the  strong  belief  that,  while  existing  slave  States 
were  exempt  from  national  interference,  there  could  be 
no  extension  of  the  slave  system  further  without 
national  participation  and  a  national  crime. 

Douglas,  at  Chicago,  in  early  July,  answered  the 
speech  which  Lincoln  had  made  to  the  Republican  con 
vention  on  the  evening  of  his  nomination.  The  two 
then  carried  on  a  joint  debate  at  various  interior  towns 
between  the  2ist  of  August  and  the  I5th  of  September 
— thousands  of  the  country  folk  gathering  at  each  place 
by  wagon  or  on  foot,  but  no  political  flags  or  mottoes 
being  allowed.  Each  orator  presented  most  strikingly 
the  strong  points  of  his  case,  and  neither  the  patroniz 
ing  condescension  nor  the  skilful  thrusts  of  the  famous 
statesman  who  was  by  all  odds  the  readiest  speaker  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  could  disconcert  for  a  mo 
ment  his  adversary,  whose  good  humor  warded  off  the 
shafts  which  were  intended  for  ridicule.  Genial  and 
rollicking  with  the  boys,  and  yet  confident  to  the  point 
of  arrogance  in  a  controversy,  and  even  supercilious, 


THE  ILLINOIS  DEBATE  379 

Douglas  aired  his  "care-nothing"  views  upon  the  moral 
aspects  of  slavery,  and  vaunted  it  as  the  generous  and 
liberal  policy  of  the  age — as  the  "great  principle"  for 
patriotic  souls  who  knew  no  sectional  limits  to  unite 
upon — to  acquire,  extend,  and  expand  our  boundaries, 
leaving  whomsoever  might  settle  upon  it  to  plant  insti 
tutions,  slave  or  free,  as  their  own  choice.  Herein 
Douglas  appeared  to  less  advantage  than  in  the  late 
Lecompton  debates,  where  he  had  been  clearly  right. 
Not  careful  to  take  his  position  justly,  and  feeling  the 
need  of  reconciling  his  late  votes  with  his  whole  former 
career  as  an  active  ally  of  the  Southern  Democracy, 
and  of  regaining  what  he  could  of  their  support  pres 
ently,  he  was  forced  back  to  his  old  trick  of  misrepre 
senting  Republican  doctrines  and  jeering  at  "negro 
equality."  But  he  was  a  powerful  and  impressive  man 
to  gaze  upon,  looking  with  his  small  but  compact  stature 
like  a  lion's  whelp ;  he  shook  back  his  heavy  hair,  and  in 
his  most  impressive  passages  roared  with  a  loud  voice, 
articulating  thickly  and  making  violent  gestures. 
Lincoln's  power  as  an  orator  lay  not  less  in  his  strong 
individuality ;  but  tall,  awkward  in  the  use  of  his  limbs, 
and  with  a  voice  piercing  rather  than  melodious  in  his 
most  animated  periods,  his  charm  flowed  rather  from 
the  impression  he  gave  that  his  convictions  were  genu 
ine  and  his  whole  nature  imbued  with  the  simple  and 
uncondescending  love  of  his  fellow-men. 

It  was  not  time  yet  for  broad  philanthropy  to  infuse 
the  sentiment  of  Lincoln's  State.  Douglas  prevailed, 
as  for  various  reasons  it  was  natural  he  should  have 
done.  He  was  canvassing  this  time  for  political  ex 
istence,  against  foes  of  his  own  party  who  were  bent 
on  destroying  him.  The  hostility  of  the  Buchanan 
cabinet  towards  him  created  friends  among  Republi- 


380         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

can  opponents.  But  the  popular  verdict  upon  the 
contest  of  principle,  aside  from  present  candidates,  was 
on  the  other  side;  and  the  Republicans  of  the  State, 
though  defeated  for  the  time,  remembered  their  stand 
ard-bearer,  "honest  Abe/'  with  proud  affection  and 
gratitude.  Lincoln's  campaign  speeches  achieved  for 
him  a  splendid  Western  reputation;  they  were  seen  to 
be  of  a  very  high  order — pungent,  clear  as  crystal 
in  their  logic  and  expression,  and  truly  admira 
ble  as  condensed  statements  of  the  national  issues  at 
stake. 

One  remarkable  statement  drawn  out  from  Douglas 
in  this  joint  debate  showed  the  schism  which  was  widen 
ing  in  the  Democratic  ranks  by  the  agency  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  According  to  the  President,  the  slave 
holders,  and  all  who  accepted  the  fiat  of  the  court  in 
that  celebrated  case,  "the  great  principle  of  popular 
sovereignty"  was  largely  restrained;  for  the  right  to 
hold  slaves  in  a  territory  was  declared  by  a  majority  of 
the  judges  to  exist,  by  virtue  of  the  Federal  compact, 
until  the  territory  grew  to  statehood,  and  chose  to  ex 
clude  the  right  under  a  State  constitution.  This  was 
no  application  of  the  Douglas  dogma  to  canvass  a 
Northwestern  State  upon;  and  Douglas,  when  pressed 
in  debate  for  his  opinion  on  this  point,  took  the  ground 
that,  whatever  the  Supreme  Court  might  decide  on  the 
abstract  question,  the  people  of  a  territory  had  the  law 
ful  means  to  introduce  or  exclude  slavery  as  they 
pleased.  For  slavery  could  not  exist  a  day  or  an  hour 
unless  supported  by  local  police  regulations,  and  the 
local  legislature  could  "by  unfriendly  legislation" 
effectually  prevent  its  introduction.  This  answer  suffi 
ciently  commended  Douglas  to  his  constituents  of 
Illinois  for  re-election  to  the  Senate,  but  as  a  Presi- 


LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  381 

dential  aspirant  it  sealed  his  doom,  for  the  breach  with 
the  Southern  and  ruling  wing  of  the  Democracy  was 
thenceforth  irreparable. 

Had  Lincoln  been  equally  exposed  to  public  gaze  at 
this  time  as  a  national  candidate,  he,  too,  might  have 
suffered,  like  so  many  who  appeal  to  popular  favor,  the 
victim  of  bold  phrases.  Though  shrewd  and  practical 
at  all  times,  disposed  to  confine  himself  to  the  immediate 
evil  which  needed  correction,  and  scrupulous  of  all 
intervening  rights,  he  could  not  have  studied  the  stu 
pendous  problem  of  the  times  so  profoundly  as  he  had 
done  without  some  prophetic  forecast  of  the  future.  In 
his  speech  of  acceptance  he  had  said :  "A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  government 
cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to 
be  divided.  It  will  become  all  of  one  thing  or  all  of  the 
other."  No  wonder  that  Lincoln's  friends  were 
troubled  at  this  bold  utterance.  No  wonder  that  his 
adversary  tore  at  it  with  holy  rage  as  abolition  heresy, 
the  advocacy  of  sectional  war,  fratricide,  servile  insur 
rection,  and  the  blotting  out  of  States.  It  happened 
that  the  same  idea  was  expressed  this  autumn  by 
Seward,  in  a  Rochester  speech,  which  pronounced  in 
more  ornate  language  the  same  prediction.  There  was, 
he  declared,  "an  irrepressible  conflict"  between  oppos 
ing  and  enduring  forces,  which,  sooner  or  later,  would 
make  the  United  States  either  entirely  a  slaveholding 
or  entirely  a  free-labor  nation.  It  was  not  a  new 
prophecy  on  his  part,  nor  bolder  than  he  had  uttered 
years  earlier;  but  Seward  was  now  the  most  eminent 
expounder  of  the  Republican  faith,  and  the  most  prob 
able  standard-bearer  of  his  party  for  1860;  hence  the 


382         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

phrase,  which  was  caught  up  everywhere,  made  him  a 
shining  mark  for  his  foes.  Both  Seward  and  Lincoln 
were  right;  and  they  proposed  no  brutal  and  bloody 
interference  with  constitutional  rights,  but  aid  and  com 
fort  to  the  cause  of  emancipation  where  slave  States 
were  concerned,  besides  higher  moral  tone  and  purpose 
for  all  occasions.  Freedom's  host  was  still  timorous; 
many  of  the  politicians  in  council  would  have  turned 
the  Republican  party  out  to  browse  among  secular 
projects,  now  that  Kansas  had  emerged  from  its  worst 
plight;  and  the  angry  roar  of  dissent  which  went  up 
from  every  quarter  of  the  Union  against  the  ''irre 
pressible  conflict"  theory  showed  that  loyalty  was  blind 
to  the  signs  of  the  time. 


Presidential  movements  were  now  in  progress.  The 
early  national  convention  of  the  Democrats  had  been 
set  already  for  Charleston,  as  though  that 
1859.  party,  already  infatuated  with  the  South, 
were  descending  into  the  very  hot-bed  of 
secession  and  aristocratic  obduracy.  The  heated 
wrangle  of  the  New  York  "hards"  and  "softs"  in  their 
recent  State  convention  was  one  of  many  indications 
that  this  next  national  gathering  would  split  up  in  irrec 
oncilable  feud. 

Three  Southern  speeches  had  been  promulgated 
during  the  anxious  summer  by  three  Southern  leaders 
of  different  types.  Stephens  of  Georgia,  Rhett  of 
South  Carolina,  and  Jefferson  Davis  were  the  several 
speakers :  the  first,  to  his  constituents  on  the  occasion 
of  his  retirement  from  Congress;  the  second,  on  the 
celebration  day  of  our  independence;  the  third,  before 
the  Democratic  State  convention  at  Jackson.  Rhett, 


NEW  SLAVERY  DOGMAS  383 

who  had  long  since  left  the  Senate  and  public  life, 
uttered  rank  secession ;  and  for  years  he  had  prophesied 
and  dissolved  the  Union  to  the  best  of  his  ability. 
Stephens  spoke  as  one  whose  interests  still  centred  in 
the  Union;  Davis,  as  a  Unionist  upon  condition.  "If 
a  President,"  said  the  latter,  "should  be  elected  on  the 
platform  of  Seward's  Rochester  speech,  then  let  the 
Union  be  dissolved." 

The  scheme  of  national  policy  which  the  two  greater 
of  these  orators  advanced  laid  stress  upon  the  newly 
discovered  right  which  Southern  slaveholders  pos 
sessed,  to  settle  with  their  human  property  in  the  terri 
tories,  protected  by  the  constitution  on  a  platform  of 
equal  rights.  In  the  triumph  of  such  a  principle  the 
slavery  exclusion  doctrine  of  Rufus  King,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  doctrine,  and  the  Texas  doctrine  had  all 
been  abandoned.  But  non-intervention,  aided  by  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  did  not  go  far  enough.  ( i )  They 
wished  Congress  to  enact  a  slave  code,  to  give  positive 
protection  to  slave  property  in  the  public  domain  while 
the  territorial  condition  lasted.  (2)  And  more  than 
this,  since  the  natural  increase  of  the  African  stock 
was  not  enough  for  the  extension  and  preservation  of 
Southern  institutions,  it  was  desirable  to  repeal  the  act 
of  Congress  which  made  the  African  slave  trade 
piracy;  that  whole  subject  belonging  more  properly  to 
the  discretion  of  the  several  States.  (3)  External  ex 
pansion  was  the  last  great  principle  for  the  South  to 
carry  out;  Central  America  and  Mexico  were  open  to 
our  acquisition,  and  Cuba  most  of  all.  Stephens  was 
not  in  favor  of  paying  Spain  much  for  her  island ;  but 
if  Cuba  wished  to  come  into  the  Union,  he  was  for  re 
pealing  the  neutrality  laws  so  as  to  give  our  people  a 
chance  to  help  her.  Davis  kept  a  clear  eye  upon  con- 


384         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tingencies;  he  viewed  the  acquisition  of  such  a  prize 
as  advantageous  to  the  whole  Union  if  the  Union  con 
tinued,  and  of  still  greater  advantage  to  the  South  in 
the  event  of  a  new  confederacy. 

These  three  new  points  of  Democratic  departure,  all 
aggressive,  might  well  alarm  the  friends  of  freedom. 
Slaveholding  philosophy  was  making  its  votaries  mad. 
To  Stephens's  mind  it  seemed  that  slavery  was  stronger 
to-day  than  ever  before.  And  Davis  solved  by 
ethnology  the  whole  relation  of  the  weaker  races; 
negroes,  he  affirmed,  had  not  here  nor  in  Liberia  shown 
capacity  for  self-governing,  and  hence  the  good  of 
society  required  that  they  should  be  kept  in  their  normal 
condition  of  servitude.  Davis  was  a  public  leader 
whom  Stephens  himself,  feeble  by  comparison  in  ex 
ecutive  force,  deferred  to.  He  was  unquestionably  the 
foremost  man  of  the  far  South  at  the  present  day ;  and 
since  Quitman's  death  his  command  could  not  be  dis 
puted.  Energy,  boldness,  and  consummate  weight  of 
character  had  given  him  a  national  reputation  and  influ 
ence;  his  style  of  speech  was  trenchant  and  analytical, 
with  an  occasional  arrogance  which  betrayed  the  train 
ing  of  a  soldier  and  plantation  lord,  as  well  as  his  keen 
consciousness  of  mental  superiority.  This  thin,  pale, 
polished,  and  intellectual-looking  son  of  Mississippi,  of 
passive  demeanor  and  habitual  courtesy,  sat  in  the 
national  Congress  among  commonplace,  blustering,  and 
bibulous  colleagues,  almost  the  only  man  left  there  of 
that  higher  grade  of  Southern  gentlemen  which  was 
once  so  common  in  public  life.  To  the  projects  of 
policy  which  Davis  now  brought  forward  the  opinion 
of  the  cotton  States  was  already  moving.  Efforts,  for 
instance,  were  already  there  in  progress  to  reopen  the 
African  slave  trade — the  first  step  being  to  denational- 


JOHN  BROWN  HANGED  385 

ize  the  crime.  And  truly  if  slave  traffic  were  morally 
right,  and  the  local  supply  insufficient,  why  was  not 
the  argument  a  good  one?  The  Southern  mind  was 
undergoing  a  change  on  this  question.  Public  men  of 
the  old  school,  like  Houston  and  Wise,  might  speak 
with  abhorrence  of  the  proposal,  but  the  great  Jeffer 
son  himself  was  out  of  date  in  posthumous  inspiration, 
and  the  act  to  which  he  had  placed  his  signature  no 
longer  sacred. 


John  Brown  was  no  Caesar,  no  Cromwell,  but  a  plain 
citizen  of  a  free  republic,  whom  distressing  events 
drove  into  a  fanaticism  to  execute  purposes 
to  which  he  was  incompetent.  He  detested  i85g. 
slavery,  and  that  detestation  led  him  to  take 
up  arms  not  only  against  slavery,  but  against  that 
public  opinion  which  was  slowly  formulating  how  best 
to  eradicate  it.  Woe  to  the  conquered.  The  North 
made  no  appeals  for  that  clemency  which  slaveholders 
had  alone  to  consider.  Brown  had  not  been  lenient  to 
masters,  nor  were  masters  bound  to  be  lenient  to  him. 
And  yet  Brown  was  an  enthusiast,  and  not  a  felon ;  the 
essence  of  his  crime  was  unselfish.  Like  the  French 
country  maiden  who  went  to  Paris  to  plunge  her  dagger 
into  a  bloody  ruler's  heart,  he  meant  to  rescue  good 
morals  from  the  usurpation  of  human  laws.  Corday 
fulfilled  her  solitary  plan  because  it  was  reasonable; 
John  Brown  failed  in  his  plan  because  it  was  unrea 
sonable;  but  both,  as  actors  and  martyrs,  flashing  upon 
the  world's  attention  like  new  meteors,  left  examples 
of  self-sacrifice,  the  one  upon  the  guillotine,  and  the 
other  upon  the  gallows,  which  a  people  could  not  re 
frain  from  exalting.  The  virgin  damsel  of  grace  and 


386         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

beauty,  and  the  grim  old  man  of  sixty,  stern  and  san 
guinary,  who  led  on  his  sons,  take  equal  hold  of  pos 
terity's  imagination;  of  each  one  it  has  been  said,  by 
acute  observers,  that  the  immediate  effect  of  their  deeds 
was  injurious  to  politics;  and  yet  society  in  the  long 
centuries  is  stronger  for  being  thus  taught  that  despot 
ism  over  fellow-men  is  not  safely  hedged  in  by  au 
thority.  Brown's  stalwart,  unique,  and  spectral  figure 
led  on,  grotesque  but  terribly  in  earnest,  the  next  time 
Virginia's  soil  was  invaded — not,  however,  for  exe 
cuting  any  such  unfeasible  scheme  of  making  the  slaves 
their  own  avengers,  but  to  apply  the  war  powers  of  the 
nation  against  disloyal  masters. 


The  Republican  Convention  met  May  i6th,  1860,  at 
Chicago;  and  a  place  more  in  contrast  with  the  Pal 
metto  city,  more  typical  of  another  civilization,  this 
Union  could  not  have  furnished.  Charleston,  where 
the  Democratic  convention  was  held,  to  be  split 
asunder,  was  aristocratic,  dogmatic,  disdainful  of  the 
plebeian  mass,  and  disposed  to  brood  over  the  past; 
Chicago  was  prosaic,  and  like  its  rectangular  system  of 
streets  splendidly  commonplace,  boastful  through 
vanity  rather  than  pride,  brimming  with  the  ostenta 
tious  hospitality  of  sudden  wealth ;  yet  growing  upon 
the  margins  which  remained  from  its  mortgages  to 
Eastern  capital,  so  as  to  seem  more  wealthy  and  expan 
sive  than  it  really  was.  This  lake  city,  without  a  past  but 
absorbed  in  the  present  and  future,  was  the  genuine 
product  of  free  settlement  and  free  institutions:  the 
wide-awake  commercial  and  distributing  centre  of  the 
great  Northwest,  whose  foible  was  the  ambition  to  be 
the  light  of  the  world ;  prolific,  and  figuring  its  popula- 


REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION        387 

tion  so  rapidly  as  to  be  already  near  the  point  of  taking 
the  crown  from  the  old  "queen  of  the  West" — for  Cin 
cinnati,  from  her  border  position  acquired  a  certain 
constraint  and  conservatism  which  her  younger  sister 
and  rival  never  owned. 

The  breezy  Northwest  had  been  the  first  originator 
of  freedom's  Republican  party;  Illinois,  a  State  of 
Jacksonian  farmers  who  had  voted  constantly  the 
Democratic  ticket,  was  important  to  win  over;  and 
Chicago  had  not  procured  the  proud  distinction  of  the 
present  Republican  convention  on  her  remote  slope 
without  intending  to  drive  a  trade  and  coin  direct  ad 
vantage  out  of  free-handed  entertainment,  as  was  cus 
tomary  with  her  citizens.  The  Republican  party  had 
been  looking  about  anxiously  for  a  winning  candidate. 
Made  up  of  such  incongruous  elements,  and  in  some 
sense  fortuitous  ones,  it  had  brought  together,  in  spite 
of  great  leaders  and  great  ideas,  a  host  of  small-fry 
agitators  and  fanatics,  men  whose  range  of  vision  was 
fixed  upon  one  spot,  or  who  had  no  range  of  vision  at 
all.  Hypocrites  also  were  in  plenty,  as  they  always  are 
when  moral  reforms  are  preached,  and  the  little  great, 
''fishing"  (to  apply  the  disdainful  phrase  of  Everett) 
"with  ever  freshly  baited  hook  in  the  turbid  waters  of 
ephemeral  popularity."  It  was  scarcely  a  step  from 
these  regenerators  of  a  society  which  gave  them  no 
recognition  to  the  ranting  fanatics,  the  disunionists, 
and  the  foul  instigators  of  free  love,  passional  attrac 
tion,  and  individual  sovereignty,  who  occupied  the  near 
background.  Conservatism  in  all  things  was  still  the 
strong  force  of  American  society,  and  the  name  of 
radical  was  thought  only  less  unendurable  than  that  of 
abolitionist.  The  practical  concerns  of  the  country 
were  constantly  brought  up  against  mere  preachers; 


388         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

not  even  Republicans,  in  the  mass,  believed  seriously 
that  the  Union  would  last  without  a  slaveholding  caste ; 
and  it  was  no  wonder  that  those  against  whose  heads 
were  flung  the  ugly  epithets  of  "freedom-shrieker," 
"negro-worshipper,"  "woolly-head"  and  "Black  Re 
publican" — or  at  least  the  politicians  among  them — 
should  seek  for  better  ballast  by  winning  from  among 
their  Northern  fellow-citizens  as  many  as  possible  of 
that  solid  and  respectable  set  who  held  the  social  keys 
and  were  in  league  with  the  college-bred.  Amid  all 
these  efforts  for  changing  and  broadening  the  scope  of 
the  new  Anti-Nebraska  party — this  spreading  of  the 
net  to  catch  conservatives — while  others,  again,  had  a 
hyper-devotion  for  the  negro  cause  which  betokened 
insincerity — many  of  the  best  Republicans  doubted  seri 
ously  that  the  anti-slavery  men  had  either  the  faith  or 
the  sagacity  to  make  a  President.  There  were  not, 
they  thought,  enough  anti-slavery  men  who  were  hon 
est  ;  while  as  for  the  impracticables,  the  rabid  abolition 
ists,  slavery  had  not  another  body  of  servitors  half  so 
useful  and  efficient. 

The  Republicans  had  been  hoping  since  1856  to  con 
quer  in  1860.  Though  the  Democratic  schism  was  a 
godsend  to  them,  yet  the  charge  of  sectionalism  was  a 
heavy  load  to  carry.  The  ideal  candidate  would  have 
been  from  one  of  the  slave  States,  but  there  was  no  one 
with  weight  of  character  sufficient.  Edward  Bates,  of 
Missouri,  a  former  Whig,  came  nearest  to  this  descrip 
tion,  but  he  was  better  fitted  to  counsel  than  direct. 
Seward  was,  by  all  odds,  the  foremost  man  in  the 
party ;  as  governor  and  senator  of  the  greatest  State  in 
the  Union,  he  had  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
cause  long  before  public  sympathy  came  to  his  side. 


LINCOLN  NOMINATED  389 

Chase,  his  worthiest  competitor,  conceded  to  him  the 
merit  of  superiority.  But  years  and  increasing  success 
had  raised  up  rivals  to  Seward,  while  he  had  been  the 
target  of  all  party  foes ;  and  prophet  though  he  was,  his 
''irrepressible  conflict"  made  men  afraid  of  defeat  under 
him  as  a  standard-bearer.  While  the  sagacious  had 
thus  looked  about,  Illinois  Republicans  had  pushed 
their  peculiar  candidate  in  such  a  way  that  should 
Seward,  the  natural  nominee  for  President,  fail  of 
success,  he  would  forestall  all  others.  And  surely,  in 
the  candidacy  of  "honest  Abe  Lincoln,"  there  was 
something  which  announced  him  as,  almost  providen 
tially,  the  man  for  the  times.  His  Whig  antecedents, 
and  his  whole  cast  and  habits,  indulged  the  idea  of  con 
servatism  ;  locality  was  in  his  favor,  could  disappointed 
rivals  from  the  greater  States  take  up  the  march  under 
him;  if  not  a  slaveholder,  the  whole  record  of  his  life 
and  early  struggles  exemplified  the  happy  transfer  from 
slave  to  free  institutions ;  while  his  unique  and  striking 
personality,  his  sympathetic  qualities,  his  raciness,  and 
the  homely  honesty  and  steadfast  moral  purpose  which 
lit  up  his  whole  character,  were  sure  to  impress  the 
people  in  his  favor.  And  withal,  Lincoln's  long  ab 
sence  from  public  service  favored  that  unacquaintance 
for  which  many  an  ambitious  man  would  gladly  ex 
change  that  dangerous  talisman,  a  public  record.  And 
finally,  there  was  something  like  poetic  justice  in 
putting  forward  the  man  who  had  won  over  Douglas 
a  moral  victory  to  oppose  him  again  on  a  fairer  field. 
Lincoln  had  been  strong  enough  in  the  convention  of 
1856  to  poll  a  respectable  vote  as  Vice-President ;  but 
he  was  now  immeasurably  stronger,  though  far  from 
being  appreciated  beyond  his  immediate  environment, 


390         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

in  his  consummate  tact  and  the  subtler  qualities  of  his 
statesmanship. 


It  was  the  opportunity  for  Buchanan  to  have  sounded 
a  trumpet  note  which  would  disconcert  disloyal  citizens 

and  recall  the  doubtful  to  their  duty.  Lincoln 
December.    an^   tne    Republicans   had    fairly   won   the 

election.  But  the  President,  with  three 
months  longer  to  serve,  had  not  in  him  the  stuff  of 
heroic  purpose.  He  was  a  loyal  man  after  his  sort, 
but  secessionism  raged  about  him,  and  kept  its  last 
clutch  upon  his  cabinet  circle.  His  opening  message 
was  craven  and  cowardly  for  the  emergency ;  its  whole 
scope  was  to  upbraid  the  people  for  their  choice  of  a 
President,  and  exhort  them  to  fall  upon  their  knees  to 
propitiate  the  fellow-citizens  they  had  out-voted,  and 
avert  the  dire  calamity  of  disunion  which  otherwise 
seemed  inevitable.  Explanatory  amendments  to  the 
constitution  were  suggested  as  a  basis  of  capitulation — 
slavery  to  be  recognized  as  rightful  in  all  States  now  or 
hereafter  choosing  to  adopt  the  system;  negro  owner 
ship  to  be  protected  in  all  national  domains  while  the 
territorial  condition  lasted ;  all  State  laws  which  inter 
fered  with  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves  to  be  null 
and  void.  The  inefficacy  of  the  constitution  to  pre 
serve  the  Union  against  domestic  violence,  such  as  now 
impended,  was  maintained  in  a  fine-spun  argument  to 
the  effect  that,  while  secession  was  unlawful,  a  State 
which  attempted  to  secede  could  not  be  coerced  into 
submission. 

In  short,  the  President's  message,  whose  loyal  ex 
pression  was  strained  in  the  skim-milk  of  apology,  was 


BUCHANAN  FALTERS  391 

ill-calculated  for  anything  but  to  encourage  disunion 
to  go  on  with  its  work.  There  was  no  vigor  in  it,  no 
backbone ;  transgressors  were  not  recalled  to  their  loyal 
obligations;  no  money,  no  military  strength,  no  means 
of  collecting  the  public  revenue  or  of  protecting  the 
public  property  were  asked  for;  some  phrases  might 
be  tortured  into  one  view  of  executive  responsibility, 
others  into  another,  but  the  too  evident  meaning  of  the 
whole  was  irresolution. 

"Oh,  for  an  hour  of  Jackson !"  was  the  spontaneous 
cry  of  conscience  Democrats.  Never  before  was  the 
weak  joint  of  our  constitutional  armor  so  clearly  ex 
posed,  which  kept  the  whole  resources  of  this  vast  gov 
ernment  sequestered  for  four  months  after  the  people 
had  declared  their  will,  in  control  of  an  administration 
and  Congress  defeated  at  the  polls. 

Southern  disunionists  did  not  falter;  they  were  not 
spinning  out  distinctions,  just  now,  for  the  vanity  of  a 
constitutional  argument,  but  they  went  straight  for 
ward  to  their  object.  South  Carolina  took  the  field 
quickly.  The  State  convention  met  at  Columbia  on  the 
1 7th  of  December,  but  small-pox  prevailing  there,  an 
adjournment  was  carried  so  as  to  meet  at  Charleston 
on  the  following  day.  A  salute  of  fifteen  guns — one 
for  each  slaveholding  State — welcomed  the  members 
to  this  latter  city.  On  the  2Oth  of  the  month  an  ordi 
nance  of  secession,  reported  from  an  appropriate  com 
mittee,  was  unanimously  adopted;  and  after  being  en 
grossed  on  parchment,  was  publicly  signed  by  all  the 
members  of  the  convention — one  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  in  number — who  thought,  no  doubt,  that  in  their 
chamber  fame  was  born.  A  "declaration  of  independ 
ence"  followed  on  the  24th,  which  borrowed  the  im- 


392         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

mortal  phrase  of  Philadelphia  in  mutually  pledging 
"our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred  honor." 


We  were  now  on  the  verge  of  a  terrible  civil  conflict, 
costly  and  sanguinary  as  the  world  ever  knew.  Private 
citizens,  in  many  instances,  saw  its  approach 
iiarch.  niore  clearly  than  did  statesmen  long  experi 
enced  in  public  life.  Thirty-one  millions  of 
inhabitants,  bristling  geographically  on  two  sides  in 
hostile  array — more  than  ten  times  the  whole  number 
that  had  withstood  the  mother  country  in  the  first  strug 
gle  for  American  independence — was  a  spectacle  for 
the  world  to  contemplate  with  amazement.  Events 
hurried  to  the  climax  of  arms  before  either  side  was 
well  aware  of  it.  In  the  free  States  more  especially,  so 
strong  had  grown  the  habit  of  belief  in  the  perpetuity 
of  the  Union  that  men  clung  tenaciously  to  the  idea 
that  political  craft  would  span  the  situation  as  it  had 
often  done  before;  that  negotiation,  honorable  or  dis 
honorable,  some  new  bundle  of  mutual  concessions, 
would  bolster  up  the  old  league  of  social  systems.  Not 
until  the  rash  cannon  of  South  Carolina  thundered  at 
Fort  Sumter  was  that  illusory  hope  dispelled ;  and  when 
the  defenders  of  the  Union  and  the  avengers  of  the 
insulted  starry  banner  sprang  to  arms,  each  party  to  the 
conflict  found  foemen  worthy  of  his  steel.  What  splen 
did  prowess  of  victory,  could  those  ranks  have  been 
seen  reuniting  to  march  all  one  way  against  a  common 
foe.  And  with  such  a  spirit  of  deadly  earnest  in  the 
strife,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  who  had  invited  it, 
weakened  and  handicapped  by  the  very  system  of  bond 
age  they  had  plunged  into  secession  with  the  foolish 
hope  of  preserving,  should  bite  the  dust.  Numbers, 


THE  BLOODY  ONSET  393 


resources,  ingenuity,  the  opinion  of  the  civilized  world, 
were  all  against  them.  And  yet  the  responsibilities  of 
the  Union  cause  at  the  time  when  the  first  Republican 
President  came  to  assume  them  must  have  been  appall 
ing. 

"Conspiracy,"  "treason,"  were  names  at  first  applied, 
all  too  narrowly,  to  those  who  struggled  to  break  from 
the  Union.  "Rebellion"  is  a  more  enduring  and  ap 
propriate  word ;  but  to  a  strife  of  such  gigantic  propor 
tions  the  law  has  been  compelled  to  concede  so  many 
belligerent  privileges  that  the  status,  as  time  goes  on, 
will  be  recognized,  more  and  more,  as  that  of  a  "civil 
war."  We  must  divest  ourselves  of  the  false  impres 
sion  that  the  crime  of  a  few  Southern  leaders  produced 
the  real  mischief.  Plunderers,  treacherous  abusers, 
like  Floyd,  Thompson,  and  Twiggs,  of  the  power  con 
fided  in  them,  must  ever  be  execrated  by  all  who  re 
spect  honor  and  principle;  but  they  who  led  the  cotton 
States  into  rebellion  felt  a  strong  public  opinion  behind 
them,  and  led  in  what  among  their  own  constituents 
was  a  popular  cause.  To  be  sure,  they  passed  from 
conventions  to  a  provisional  confederacy  with  little  of 
what,  in  the  purest  American  sense,  seemed  like  a  sub 
mission  to  the  popular  vote.  That,  however,  was  in 
pursuance  of  class  and  oligarchical  political  methods 
to  which  the  slave  section  of  the  country  had  been  well 
accustomed. 

Among  these  earlier  seceding  States,  at  least,  which 
bore  with  enthusiasm  the  standard  of  slavery  propa- 
gandism,  misconception,  false  education,  and  the  habits 
of  life  which  a  slave  system  fosters,  made  the  cause  of 
their  new  revolution  a  popular  one.  Men  rallied  here 
to  destroy  the  Union  as  readily  as  at  the  North  to 
uphold  it ;  and  that  latent  loyalty,  upon  which  our  gov- 


394         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ernment  reckoned  in  the  early  days  of  the  war  to  pro 
duce  a  counter-revolution  proved  always  a  fallacious 
hope.  The  philosophy  of  Southern  statesmanship  was, 
in  truth,  poisoned  and  vitiated  at  its  source  by  the 
sophistries  of  the  great  Calhoun,  that  pure-minded  man 
of  dual  character,  devoted  in  his  last  years  to  the  ex 
periment  which  now  bore  fruit,  whose  strong  feelings 
set  him  to  some  resolute  purpose,  for  which  his  subtle 
and  ingenious  mind  worked  out  the  logical  reasons. 
The  harm  diffused  thus  throughout  the  South  was  that 
not  uncommon  one  of  taking  false  maxims  for  first 
principles.  Secession  and  slavery  became  thus  ab 
stractly  right;  the  economics  of  slave  labor,  the  potent 
forces  which  must  rule  the  world;  loyalty  to  the  State 
and  to  the  slave  system  took  priority  of  loyalty  to  the 
Union ;  and  for  years  dreams  of  ambition  and  cupidity 
had  drawn  this  people  insensibly  onward  to  the  preci 
pice  of  disunion.  And  thus  the  new  Confederacy, 
which  leaders  now  struck  to  establish,  was  but  the 
attempted  realization  of  visions  long  indulged.  The 
majority  of  States  and  of  the  American  people  had  been 
trained  differently. 

Some  have  thought  that  Davis  and  his  compeers  of 
the  Montgomery  Congress  hoped  still  for  concessions 
from  the  North  which  would  save  the  Union,  after  the 
manner  of  former  compromises.  Facts  do  not  justify 
altogether  this  favorable  view,  though  many,  no  doubt, 
cherished  that  belief  for  a  time  in  States,  like  Virginia, 
which  long  wavered.  South  Carolina  was  confident, 
self-sufficient ;  and  among  the  bold  and  buoyant  spirits 
who  set  rebellion  in  motion,  the  real  belief  appears 
rather  to  have  been  that  they  would  yet  dictate  terms, 
and  reconstruct  the  old  Union  upon  their  new  basis. 
But  what  they  reckoned  upon,  with  even  more  fatuous 


A  CIVIL  WAR  395 

confidence,  was  the  cowardly  inertness  of  the  free 
States.  They  anticipated  no  war  which  would  draw 
out  the  whole  resources  of  the  Union  against  them; 
they  expected,  at  the  least,  to  be  let  alone ;  left  to  secede 
in  peace,  and  to  arrange  some  division  of  the  common 
debts  and  property.  The  North,  on  its  own  part,  failed 
to  understand  the  South;  here  it  was  too  commonly 
believed  that  slaveholders  would  bluster  and  come  back 
again,  as  they  had  done  before;  that  in  a  strife  so  un 
equal  they  would  not  fight.  This  rebellion  had  been 
ripening  ever  since  slavery  became  a  growing  force  in 
our  Union,  partaking  of  the  national  spirit  of  expan 
sion.  And  because  slavery  and  freedom  were  both 
expanding  and  enduring  forces  in  those  days,  the 
collision,  which  compromise  had  but  temporarily  post 
poned,  was  sooner  or  later  inevitable. 

No  people  surely,  on  either  side,  ever  shouldered  the 
musket  to  sustain  a  cause  with  more  faithfulness  to 
ideas,  stronger  convictions  of  public  duty,  than  did  the 
Southern  and  the  Northern  in  the  present  struggle ;  the 
one  devoted  to  his  State,  the  other  to  the  Union;  and 
the  progress  of  the  civil  strife  gave,  too,  to  moral  agi 
tators  their  share  in  the  glory  of  results.  For,  under 
the  circumstances,  nothing  but  the  appeal  to  rally  round 
the  flag  and  preserve  the  public  property,  the  constitu 
tion,  and  the  laws,  could  have  united  the  loyal  people 
to  the  northward,  irrespective  of  past  party  ties,  in  so 
splendid  a  demonstration.  And  nothing,  moreover,  as 
events  went  on,  but  the  downfall  and  destruction  of 
that  whole  pernicious  system  which  was  at  the  root  of 
all  the  great  troubles  of  the  century,  and  obstructed  the 
destiny  and  growth  of  the  American  people  in  homo 
geneous  grandeur,  would  have  made  the  Union 
worth  sustaining  through  the  long,  costly,  and  calami- 


396         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

tous   strife,   or   kept   the   North   constant   to   bear   it 
through. 


Washington  at  this  time  wore  the  aspect  of  a  be 
leaguered  city.  Thanks  to  the  energy  and  foresight  of 
General  Scott,  and  the  cabinet  coterie  which  saved 
Buchanan  from  ignominious  shame,  there  were  now 
over  six  hundred  troops  stationed  at  the  national  capi 
tal,  exclusive  of  marines  at  the  navy  yard,  to  preserve 
order  and  peace  at  the  coming  inauguration. 

There  was  trepidation  and  excitement  in  this  city — 
the  whole  aspect  of  its  society  rapidly  changing  already 
by  the  exodus  of  the  Southern,  now  disloyal  element, 
which  had  given  it  character.  Slovenly  and  thread 
bare  still,  this  only  child  of  the  nation  gained  yet  some 
thing  in  attractiveness  before  colossal  events  were  to 
make  the  city  historical.  A  grand  aqueduct,  with  water 
supply  from  the  falls  of  the  Potomac,  was  among  the 
greatest  of  its  more  recent  enterprises.  Still  stood  the 
familiar  White  House  upon  the  executive  reservation 
at  the  west  end,  with  three  drab  buildings  of  brick, 
which  housed  the  State  department  on  one  side,  and  the 
war  and  the  navy  on  the  other;  but  the  granite  exten 
sions  of  the  treasury,  superadding  noble  fronts  at  north 
and  south  to  the  old  sandstone  colonnade,  promised  a 
more  imposing  architecture.  Down  on  the  flats  of  the 
Potomac  was  seen  the  marble  shaft  of  the  monument 
to  Washington,  long  to  remain  unfinished,  now  that  the 
older  sentiment  of  personal  veneration  failed  for  a 
sectional  cement.  On  yonder  beautiful  heights  of 
Capitol  Hill  spread  out  the  white,  unfolded  wings  of 
the  national  legislature  like  an  eagle  on  its  perpetual 
perch ;  but  the  grand  central  dome  was  as  yet  but  par- 


WASHINGTON  IN  1861  397 

tially  completed, and  its  full  spans  of  glass  and  iron  were 
wanting.  It  was  long  before  that  central  dome  was 
finished ;  longer,  far  longer,  before  the  disused  derrick 
upon  that  Washington  obelisk  was  to  give  place  that 
earnest  work  might  carry  its  shaft  to  the  clouds.  But 
regeneration  preceded  harmony;  and  when  that  dome 
was  completed,  and  the  great  bronze  statue  of  liberty, 
already  designed  for  it,  had  been  placed  in  position  at 
its  apex,  a  brighter  and  broader  horizon  was  swept  by 
the  vision.  That  metal  figure  emblematized  a  spirit 
which,  often  and  often  invoked  in  the  temple  below 
with  the  grandest,  richest  eloquence  of  which  man  is 
capable,  had  never  gazed  before  with  so  real  a  meaning 
at  the  eastern  sun. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  CHAPTER. 

ADMINISTRATION    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 
March  4,  i86i-April  15,  1865. 

H  ^  ¥  ^HERE  lies  the  most  perfect  ruler  of  men 
the  world  has  ever  seen!"  said  Secretary 
m.  Stan  ton  in  tears,  at  this  President's  death- 
couch;  and  probably  for  a  eulogy  so  brief,  no  fitter 
one  could  have  been  pronounced.  Well  did  that 
stern  subordinate — headstrong,  impulsive,  born  to 
be  unpopular — realize  how  much  of  his  own  splen 
did  opportunity  and  success  in  achieving  he  owed 
to  that  generous  and  genial  direction.  Abraham  Lin 
coln  need  hardly  be  compared  with  the  great  rulers  of 
mankind  in  other  ages  and  countries;  it  is  enough  to 
take  him  in  his  most  admirable  adaptation  to  the  age 
and  country  in  which  his  destiny  was  cast.  He  clearly 
understood  the  thirty  millions  of  Americans  over  whom 
he  had  been  placed  by  the  people's  choice,  and  the  tre 
mendous  task  given  him  by  his  Maker  to  be  accom 
plished.  Lincoln  was  not  a  profound  scholar,  but  his 
mind  was  acute  and  his  logical  faculties  clear  and 
active;  he  had  a  lawyer's  self-culture  to  comprehend  the 
relations  of  republican  society;  he  had  studied  Ameri 
can  political  history  and  problems  of  government,  and 
no  one  understood  better  his  country's  institutions, 
State  and  national,  in  their  practical  workings.  He 
had  fair  public  experience,  besides;  and  his  excellence 
as  an  administrator  in  affairs  lay  in  his  consummate 


LINCOLN  AS  PRESIDENT  399 

tact  and  skill  as  a  manager  and  director  of  political 
forces  under  the  complex  and  composite  system  of  our 
American  government.  His  high  qualifications  in  this 
respect  were  first  made  manifest  in  his  own  important 
State  of  Illinois;  and,  though  not  among  the  chief 
founders  of  the  new  national  party  which  brought  him 
into  the  Presidency,  he  promptly  came  forward  as  one 
of  its  leaders,  and,  once  placed  in  direction,  he  guided 
it  confidently  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  unapproachable  as 
chieftain  and  popular  inspirer.  As  President  of  the 
United  States  he  harnessed  together  the  greatest  intel 
lects  of  this  party — statesmen  diverse  as  the  winds  in 
temper  and  sentiment,  better  capable  than  himself  to 
push  forward  the  car  of  legislation  or  handle  the  multi 
farious  details  of  executive  work ;  and  he  held  the  reins 
over  them  with  infinite  considerateness  and  discretion, 
conciliating,  assuaging  rivalries,  maintaining  good 
humor,  and  encouraging  each  to  his  greatest  work.  He 
kept  his  cabinet  in  the  closest  touch  with  Congress,  and 
both  cabinet  and  Congress  in  generous  accord  with 
public  opinion,  which  last  he  carefully  watched  and 
tilled  like  a  good  gardener,  planting  seed,  nurturing 
the  growth  of  new  ideas,  and  bringing,  in  proper  time, 
the  ripe  fruit.  Raw  haste,  the  falsehood  of  extremes 
on  one  side  or  the  other,  he  sedulously  avoided ;  yet  he 
sowed  and  cultivated.  And,  once  again,  while  con 
ducting  the  cause  of  the  whole  Union,  of  national  in 
tegrity,  he  was  yet  highly  regardful  of  State  pride  and 
State  magistracy,  seeking  not  suppression,  but  assist 
ance,  as  to  this  element  of  allegiance;  and  the  harshest 
military  rigor  he  ever  exercised  over  State  rebellion 
was  tempered  by  clemency,  forgiveness,  and  compas 
sion.  Not  an  insurgent  commonwealth  of  the  South 
did  he  attempt  to  reorganize  and  reconstruct,  save 


400         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

through  the  spontaneous  aid  of  its  own  recognized  in 
habitants  and  such  native  and  natural  leaders  of  the 
jurisdiction  as  were  found  available;  while  of  border 
slave  States,  at  first  doubtful  and  wavering  in  alle 
giance,  because  of  a  divided  interest  and  affection,  the 
two  that  he  grappled  most  violently  became  not  only 
stanch  to  the  Union,  but  converts  to  emancipation,  from 
their  own  choice,  before  war  ended.  The  armed 
potency,  almost  unexampled,  which  this  President  ex 
ercised  through  four  distressful  years,  was  always  ex 
ercised  unselfishly  and  as  a  patriot,  in  the  name  and  for 
the  welfare  of  the  real  constitutional  government  which 
he  represented,  and  for  the  permanent  welfare  of  the 
whole  American  people.  Rarely  leaving  and  never 
going  far  from  the  nation's  capital  during  that  entire 
period,  he  there  came  in  contact  with  people  from  all 
parts  of  the  land — soldiers  and  civilians,  men,  women, 
and  children — and  by  his  rare  personality,  in  whose 
external  expression  pathos  and  humor  were  remarkably 
blended,  he  dispelled  unfavorable  prejudice  and  en 
deared  himself  gradually  to  all  classes  of  our  people,  at 
the  same  time  giving  reassurance  as  of  one  genuine, 
self-possessed,  and  trustworthy,  who  knew  well  his 
responsibilities  and  was  capable  of  exercising  them. 

Lincoln  was  an  American  of  Americans,  the  best 
and  noblest  type  of  an  indigenous  democracy,  such  as 
several  generations  of  native  independence  and  self- 
government  had  developed  in  lowly  life.  He  was  the 
ideal  of  the  common  American  voter — the  common  citi 
zen — sharing  with  the  average  of  our  race  the  wish  to 
better,  honorably,  the  conditions  of  humble  origin; 
proud  of  his  own  native  land,  and  desirous  that  its 
example  to  the  world  should  be  unblemished.  Like 
the  vast  majority  of  Americans,  he  was  conservative 


LINCOLN'S  CHARACTER  401 

while  in  progression,  and  loved  that  liberty  which 
comes  protected  by  law.  Cautious,  practical,  and  with 
a  homely  sagacity,  notwithstanding  high  ideals,  he 
yielded  not  to  theory,  but  to  trial,  respected  customs, 
and  pursued  the  plans  of  life  with  wondrous  patience 
and  perseverance.  Father  of  his  country,  as  Emerson 
has  well  said  of  him,  the  pulse  of  many  millions 
throbbed  in  his  heart,  and  their  thought  was  articulated 
by  his  tongue.  Even  as  Washington  was  the  typical 
ruler  for  a  generation  bred  to  traditions  of  royalty  and 
privilege,  so  Lincoln  suited  the  common  conception  for 
a  people  long  confident  of  themselves.  With  him,  ad 
ventitious  birth  or  wealth  went  for  little;  but  he 
weighed  all  men  by  their  intrinsic  worth,  giving  to  each 
the  due  ponderance  that  personal  character  had  won, 
and  avoiding  falsehood,  whether  of  the  social  theorist, 
who  treats  dunces  and  the  wise  alike,  or  of  the  dema 
gogue,  who  courts  meanness  only.  God's  greatest 
miracles  on  earth  have  been  wrought  out  of  natural 
elements,  and  His  greatest  tasks  committed  to  men  of 
true,  steadfast  hearts  and  simple  faith.  If  this  Presi 
dent  had  no  great  erudition,  in  him  were  happily  com 
bined,  at  least,  the  qualities  for  conducting  a  great  social 
change — a  strong  intellect,  convictions  strong  when 
once  formed,  a  hardy  physical  frame,  sound  moral 
sense,  and  a  persevering  will. 

After  all,  the  real  ruler  of  mankind,  and  especially 
of  a  vigorous  and  intelligent  community,  is  he  who  can 
rule  himself ;  and  to  that  type  of  men  Lincoln  certainly 
belonged.  He  was  plain  in  manners,  unostentatious, 
unaffected,  free,  to  a  remarkable  degree,  from  vindic- 
tiveness  or  fierce  passion.  Cheery  and  good-natured  by 
disposition,  calm,  and  even  jocular,  while  others  were 
angry  or  excited,  he  would  show  displeasure  by  raised 


402         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

eyebrows,  closed  lips,  or  a  clench  of  the  hand;  but  re 
sentment  with  him  seldom  went  further,  and  in  action 
he  was  just,  magnanimous,  and  bore  no  malice.  The 
display  of  others'  foibles  amused  more  than  it  offended 
him,  while  for  real  sorrow  and  suffering  he  mourned  in 
sympathy.  Though  a  giant  in  stature  he  had  a 
woman's  tenderness  of  heart,  and  he  sorrowed  deeply 
over  the  calamities  that  necessity  compelled  him  to  in 
flict.  Ambitious  we  may  well  suppose  him  to  have 
been,  but  his  ambition  was  of  that  lofty  and  laudable 
kind  that  prompts  to  the  general  good.  From  earliest 
childhood  he  had  known  what  it  was  to  strive  and 
struggle  upward  against  the  world's  disdainful  regard, 
yet  experience  of  life  made  him  not  crabbed,  but  kind- 
hearted,  and  the  poem  whose  bosom-lines  he  most  loved 
to  repeat  rebuked  the  spirit  of  mortal  pride  and  taught 
a  chastening  lesson.  No  high  ruler  ever  showed  less 
the  caste  of  race  or  station  in  demeanor;  and  it  was 
Frederick  Douglass,  the  man  of  colored  skin,  who  pro 
nounced  him  free  from  that  condescending  manner 
that  had  impressed  him  much  among  other  philan 
thropic  friends  of  his  race.  It  was,  indeed,  his  broad 
range  of  sympathy,  and  his  keen  appreciation  of  human 
nature,  with  all  its  faults  and  failings,  that  kept  him  so 
close  to  the  common  heart.  Lincoln  took  the  world  as 
he  found  it,  with  always  a  disposition  to  make  it  better. 
Holding  before  followers  and  the  country  the  loftiest 
ideals  of  public  duty,  while  capable  at  the  same  time  of 
using  the  selfishness  of  others  for  the  good  of  the  cause, 
he  required  no  sordid  or  selfish  abuse  of  official  spoils, 
no  cunning  organisms  of  petty  tyranny,  for  keeping 
himself  secure  in  power ;  and  it  was  the  popular  intui 
tion  that  seldom  errs  which  secured  his  re-election  for 
another  term,  rather  than  that  cunning  thwart  of  oppo- 


LINCOLN'S  CHARACTER  403 

sition  which  picks  out  delegates  and  shuts  rivals  from 
the  suffrage  of  the  people. 

Lincoln  was,  to  a  singular  extent,  representative  of 
the  whole  American  people,  the  component  of  all  sec 
tions  of  the  United  States.  He  foresaw  and  foretold 
that  in  the  great  struggle  between  North  and  South 
neither  side  could  afford  to  disbelieve  in  the  courage 
and  intrepidity  of  the  other.  He  had  the  unfailing 
courtesy  and  honor  of  a  Kentuckian  born;  but,  unlike 
Henry  Clay,  he  was,  in  manners  and  modes  of  thought, 
a  denizen  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  He  had  the  ingen 
ious  fertility  for  contrivance  of  a  New  England  Yankee, 
with,  at  the  same  time,  the  breezy  and  unconventional 
boldness  of  the  Westerner.  He  approached  the  social 
problem  of  his  age  with  an  average  Northern  man's 
objective  dislike  of  slavery,  and  yet  with  something, 
moreover,  of  the  subjective  misgivings  over  emancipa 
tion  which  were  felt  by  border  slaveholders  and  the 
more  humane  of  Southern  masters.  We  may  recall  the 
various  expedients  he  employed  to  lighten  the  coming 
blow,  rather  than  offend  susceptibilities.  So,  too,  as 
new  areas  of  the  South  were  regained,  or  made  secure, 
his  capacity  was  shown  for  soothing  Southern  fellow- 
citizens,  allaying  their  former  misconceptions,  and 
reconciling  their  hearts  to  the  new  order  of  things.  In 
short,  as  Lincoln's  biographers*  have  well  pointed  out, 
his  blood  was  drawn  from  the  veins  of  every  section  of 
the  Union ;  and  of  East,  Middle,  South,  together  with 
pioneer  civilizing  growth  in  the  great  Northwest,  his 
nature  equally  partook. 

Lincoln's  peculiar  methods  as  President  have  been 
observed  in  the  course  of  our  narrative,  f  He  was  true 
and  steadfast  to  his  main  public  purpose,  a  present  in- 
*  10  N.  &  H.  final  chapter,  t  See  Vol.  VI. 


4o4         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

spiration,  clearly  conceiving  the  immediate  duty  to  be 
performed,  but  borrowing  as  little  trouble  as  possible 
for  the  far  future.  Eminently  practical  in  statesman 
ship,  his  exhortation  was  to  action,  and  he  disinclined 
to  hamper  himself  by  schemes  which  might  not  readily 
yield  to  circumstances  and  a  coming  exigency.  "My 
policy,"  he  would  say,  "is  to  have  no  policy;"  not  in 
tending  this  literally,  but  so  that  political  convenience, 
or  the  mercy  of  exceptions,  should  give  to  formulas  all 
needful  corrective.  "I  do  not  cross  Fox  River  until  I 
come  to  it,"  was  another  saying  of  his ;  yet  he  well  ap 
prehended  the  general  direction  in  which  he  headed, 
and  simply  made  his  way  from  point  to  point,  with 
cautious  circumspection,  and  throwing  out  skirmishers, 
so  to  speak.  He  thought  and  felt  with  the  common 
people,  or  rather  so  as  to  educate  them  to  change  with 
himself;  hence  expressions,  like  his  point  of  view,  might 
shift,  though  in  general  exhortation  he  was  sound  and 
consistent.  It  is  now  conceded  that  he  chose  precisely 
the  right  moment,  neither  too  soon  nor  too  tardy,  for 
issuing  his  edict  of  emancipation,  so  as  to  give  it  actual 
effect ;  and  so,  too,  was  his  time  well  selected  for  giving 
permanent  and  comprehensive  force  to  this  new 
national  policy  by  the  sound  process  of  constitutional 
amendment.  In  all  things  patient  and  incessantly  pur 
suing,  his  mind  would  turn  to  indirect  experiment  for 
gaining  the  desired  end,  or  so  at  least  as  to  force  the 
conviction  that  expedients  were  useless.  He  liked  to 
approach  reform  by  the  flank  before  assaulting.  "Peg 
ging  away,"  to  use  his  homely  phrase,  as  of  one  indus 
trious  over  an  humble  manual  toil,  he  rounded  out  his 
work  by  dint  of  a  sound  intelligence  honestly  and  with 
constancy  applied.  For,  carefully  though  he  watched 
the  growth  of  public  opinion,  and  heedful  not  to  get 


LINCOLN'S  CHARACTER  405 

too  far  away,  he  formed  and  guided  opinion,  and  was 
no  mere  waiter  for  other  men.  He  took  the  public  into 
his  full  confidence,  and,  by  message,  speech,  or  open 
letter,  would  utter  plainly  his  views  and  purpose  upon 
critical  occasions. 

From  one  of  such  tenderness  and  broad  affiliation 
with  his  fellow-men,  one  whose  favorite  weapon  had 
been  argument,  and  not  compulsion,  this  long  and  san 
guinary  strife,  more  bitter  and  protracted  than  he  him 
self  or  most  other  countrymen  could  possibly  have  an 
ticipated,  must  have  truly  been  a  fearful  strain.  Yet 
of  the  wrestlings  and  agonies  in  soul  that  this  President 
underwent,  the  world  knew  little  beyond  noting  the 
ghastliness  he  would  present,  with  sunken  cheeks  and 
hollow  eyes,  after  a  night's  secret  vigil  of  sorrow,  while 
no  words  but  cheerful  ones  escaped  his  lips.  His 
prayerful  communings  in  secret  must  have  been  deep 
and  fervent.  Few  men  ever  lived  with  nerves  and  a 
constitution  to  bear  responsibilities  like  these.  But  he 
would  relax  the  tension  of  mind  by  abandoning  himself 
to  frolic  and  play  with  his  children  in  the  inner  apart 
ments  of  the  White  House,  or  by  observing  the  humor 
ous  aspect  of  scenes  about  him  in  his  audience  chamber, 
or  by  reading,  with  keen  zest,  the  pages  of  native 
humorists,  such  as  Artemus  Ward,*  who  touched  off 
American  life  in  phases  familiar  to  him.  With  the 
jocose  manner  habitual  to  him,  and  little  pleasantries 
towards  those  whom  he  happened  to  accost,  he  would 
throw  off  the  burdensome  anxieties  that  must  other 
wise  have  broken  him  down.  Lincoln's  rare  vein  of 
humor,  as  disclosed  in  the  many  authentic  stories  and 

*  It  was  with  a  chapter  from  this  author  that,  much  to  Stanton's 
disgust,  the  President  regaled  his  Cabinet,  before  introducing  the 
historical  proclamation  with  its  graver  exordium.  6  N.  &  H.  158. 


406         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

pithy  sayings  of  his,  long  since  recorded,  make  him 
stand  out,  fresh  and  original  as  a  public  personage, 
like  those  early  heroes,  Greek  or  Roman,  whose  lives 
and  characters  are  described  by  anecdotes.  The 
piquant  zest  of  whatever  he  might  say  was  heightened 
by  a  quaint  dialect  and  the  flavor  of  a  singular  personal 
experience ;  yet  many  of  his  parables  were  doubtless  in 
vented  or  adapted,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  to  en 
force  some  argument,  or,  as  often  happened,  to  ward 
off  inquiries  from  others  too  pointed  and  searching. 
Of  all  rulers  who  pleased  in  intercourse,  this  one,  while 
truthful,  was  shrewdest  in  fencing  where  he  was  not 
prepared  to  express;  but  on  great  occasions,  strong 
impulses  came  welling  up  from  that  noble  heart,  and 
great  thoughts  found  a  most  adequate  utterance.  For, 
in  spite  of  a  rare  inelegance  of  metaphor,  such  as  would 
grate  upon  ears  polite,  Lincoln  was  a  master  of  style, 
and,  while  Chief  Executive,  wrote  more  that  was  clear, 
forcible,  and  simply  eloquent  in  literary  prose,  and  sure 
of  enduring,  than  any  other  American  of  that  eventful 
period.  He  was  not  only  first  among  historical  actors 
of  this  Civil  War,  but  its  ablest  contemporary  inter 
preter  besides. 

If  not  wholly  free  from  the  commission  of  minor 
faults,  this  Chief  Executive  was  remarkably  exempt, 
as  an  administrator,  from  radical  error.  He  was  quite 
at  home  in  American  politics ;  his  memory  of  faces  was 
wonderful,  and  he  knew  well  or  learned  readily  the 
statesmen  and  managers  of  his  times,  and  took  in  their 
characters,  one  by  one,  their  personal  appearance,  and 
their  means  of  helpfulness  to  his  public  purposes.  He 
was  true  to  those  purposes,  honest  and  to  be  depended 
on.  He  trusted  the  loyal  people,  and  the  loyal  people 
trusted  him  in  return;  their  predilections  were  for 


FAME  OF  LINCOLN  407 

peace,  and  so  were  his  own;  and  hence  for  war  much 
had  to  be  learned.  As  our  narrative  has  shown,  it  was 
not  in  the  civilian,  but  the  military  aspect  of  his  Presi 
dency  that  he  was  seen  to  grope,  to  feel  out  fallibly,  to 
make  imperfect  estimates  of  character  and  capacity, 
like  the  average  of  those  at  the  North  who  stood  behind 
him.  Yet,  for  all  this,  he  grew  in  military  discretion 
and  knowledge  with  the  years,  and,  though  never  pre 
tending  to  be  a  technical  soldier,  he  learned  to  give  here 
a  correct  supervision,  as  in  all  other  matters  pertaining 
to  a  ruler.  He  experimented  with  generals  of  differing 
temperaments  and  credentials;  he  watched  campaigns 
intently  in  their  progress,  and  studied  the  battles;  nor 
would  he  rest,  day  or  night,  until  the  generals  were 
found  who  could  command  and  conquer.  To  the 
greatest  of  these,  as  to  all  others,  he  gave  freely  and 
honorably  of  the  nation's  resources,  and  the  fullest  con 
fidence  deserved.  As  for  war  itself,  he  must  have  felt 
like  Washington,  who  declared,  when  at  the  same  stage 
of  human  experience,  "My  first  wish  is  to  see  this 
plague  of  mankind  banished  from  off  the  earth." 

The  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  enhanced  by  the 
deep  pity  felt  for  his  sad  and  sudden  taking  off — the 
martyrdom  of  a  misconception — has  reached  the  stars, 
and  will  spread  and  endure  so  long  as  human  rights 
and  human  freedom  are  held  sacred.  For  Americans 
his  name  is  imperishably  joined  with  that  of  Washing 
ton,  under  the  designation,  "Father,"  which  no  others 
yet  have  borne — the  one  saviour  and  founder,  the  other, 
preserver  and  liberator.  Washington's  work  was  as 
completely  finished  as  one  great  human  life  could  make 
it ;  and  had  Lincoln  been  spared  to  the  end  of  the  Presi 
dency  for  which  he  was  rechosen,  the  capstone  to  his 
monument  would  surely  have  been  inscribed  "Recon- 


4o8         EIGHTY  YEARS  OF  UNION 

ciler."  For  no  man  of  his  times  could  so  wisely  and 
powerfully,  or  would  so  earnestly,  have  applied  him 
self  to  the  compassionate  task  of  binding  together  the 
broken  ligaments  of  national  brotherhood  and  infusing 
through  the  body  politic  once  more  the  spirit  of  com 
mon  harmony  and  content.  Nothing  but  the  clouds  of 
false  prejudice  and  rumor  could  anywhere  have  ob 
scured  or  prevented  the  rays  of  so  warming  and  regen 
erating  a  personal  influence. 

NOTE. — The  scope  and  limit  of  this  book  forbid  more  than  a 
single  selection  from  the  author's  sixth  and  final  volume.  The 
concluding  pages  of  that  volume  are  embraced  in  the  foregoing 
extract ;  and  for  a  full  and  concise  narrative  of  the  whole  Civil 
War,  in  its  political  and  military  aspects,  during  the  entire  period 
of  Abraham  Lincoln's  memorable  administration,  the  reader  is 
kindly  referred  to  the  author's  sixth  volume  of  "History  of  the 
United  States,"  which,  as  a  separate  work,  is  known  as  "History 
of  the  Civil  War." 


INDEX 


Abolition.      (See   Slavery.) 

Adams,  John,  9;  Vice-Presi 
dent,  17;  President,  59,  70; 
character,  72,  212,  239;  the 
two  Adamses,  217. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  166,  191 ; 
President,  214,  224;  the  two 
Adamses,  217;  in  the  House, 
271 ;  death,  337. 

Adams,  Samuel,  9. 

Agriculture,    132. 

Alabama,  212,  366. 

Alien  act,  62. 

Alleghany   Mountains,   250. 

American  character,  240 ;  man 
ners,  243;  business,  245;  in 
dustry,  246. 

American  party,  369. 

Ames,  Fisher,  37,  54. 

Anti-Masons,  254,  273,  369. 

Anti-Nebraska   party,    388. 

Arkansas,    188,    367. 

Army,  145,  317.  (See  Dis 
union.) 

Ashburton  Treaty,  315. 

Astor,    William,   246. 

Badger,  George  E.,  368. 
Bainbridge,     Captain    William, 

152. 

Baldwin,  Henry,  282. 
Bancroft,  George,  340. 


Bank,   149,  293. 

Barbour,   Philip  P.,  283. 

Barlow,  Joel,    196. 

Bates,   Edward,   388. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  234,  312. 

Bernard,    General,    164. 

Bibb,  William  W.,   139. 

Bills   of   Rights,    131. 

Blennerhassett,    Herman,    106. 

Blue  lights,  153. 

Bolivar,  General,  180,  242. 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  68,  90, 
in. 

Boston,  165,  354. 

Boundaries  of  United  States 
(1783),  2;  (1849)  312,  323, 
344- 

Brazil,  171. 

Breckinridge,  John,  64. 

Brown,  John,  385. 

Buchanan,  James,  340;  Presi 
dent,  374,  390,  391. 

Buenos  Ayres,  170. 

Burns,  Marcia,   196. 

Burr,  Aaron,  70;  duel,  93; 
conspiracy,  106;  death,  108. 

Business,    American,   245. 

Cadiz,  204. 

Cadore  letter,   137,   138. 
Calhoun,  John  C,  66,  141,  192, 
201 ;      Vice-President,      215, 


4io 


INDEX 


229,  250,  255;  in  the  Senate, 
258,  313,  394- 

California,  320,  345,  347. 

Canals,  226,  268. 

Canning,  George,  203. 

Capitol,  45,  69,  195,  396. 

Carroll,  Daniel,  158. 

Cass,  Lewis,  355,  375. 

Census  of  1820,  199. 

Central  America,  370. 

Character,  American,  240. 

Charleston  Convention,  391. 

Charlestown,  riots  in,  370. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  389. 

Chatham,   Earl  of,  338. 

Chicago,   249,   386. 

Chili,  170. 

Chippewa,  326. 

Choate,  Rufus,  355. 

Cholera,  345. 

Cincinnati,  248,  355. 

Civil  War,  395. 

Clarkson,  Mayor,    47,  50. 

Clay,  Henry,  139,  145,  166,  191, 
254,  355 ;  death,  357,  403. 

Clayton,  John  M.,  255,  368. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  200,  327. 

Clinton,  George,  9,  14. 

Cobden,  Richard,  321. 

Commerce,  132.  (See  Em 
bargo.) 

Compromise,  Missouri  (1820), 
187-189;  (1850)  355,366,367, 
Missouri  compact  broken, 
367. 

Congress,  first  and  second,  14; 
third  and  fourth,  39;  fifth 
and  sixth,  59 ;  seventh  and 
eighth,  83;  ninth  and  tenth, 
104;  eleventh  and  twelfth, 
136;  thirteenth  and  four 


teenth,  147;  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth,  157;  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth,  190;  nine 
teenth  and  twentieth,  214; 
twenty-first  and  twenty-sec 
ond,  228;  twenty-third  and 
twenty-fourth,  261 ;  twenty- 
fifth  and  twenty-sixth,  293 ; 
twenty-seventh,  301,  304; 
twenty-eighth,  304 ;  twenty- 
ninth  and  thirtieth,  317;  thir 
ty-first,  343,  352;  thirty-sec 
ond,  352;  thirty-third  and 
thirty-fourth,  362 ;  thirty- 
fifth  and  thirty-sixth,  374 ; 
thirty-seventh,  398. 

Connecticut,   274. 

Constitutions,    State,    129. 

Conventions.      (See   Parties.) 

Cooper,    Thomas,    39. 

Corday,  Charlotte,  385. 

Corwin,   Thomas,  343. 

Crawford,  William  H.,  167, 
191. 

Crittenden,  John  J.,  355. 

Cuba,  370,  383- 

Dallas,   Alexander  J.,  54,    149. 
Danites,  376. 
Daschkoff,  191. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  334,  365,  382. 
Davis,  John,  272. 
Dayton,   Jonathan,  56-60. 
Dayton,  William  L.,  372. 
Democrats    (see    Parties),    62, 

171,  172,  173,  375,  386. 
De  Tocqueville,  238. 
Detroit,  250. 
Dexter,   Samuel,  78. 
Disunion  movements,  383,  384, 

390,  391,  392. 


INDEX 


411 


Dix,  John  A.,  339. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  363,  375, 

378. 

Douglass,    Frederick,   402. 
Downing,  Jack,  267. 
Duane,  William,  98. 
Dutch  customs,  243. 

Edwards,   Jonathan,    56. 

Elections,  Presidential  (1789), 
17;  (1792)  39;  (1796)  595 
(1800)  70;  (1804)  104; 
(1808)  136;  (1812)  147; 
(1816)  153;  (1820)  190; 
(1824)  214;  (1828)  228; 
(1832)  261,  (1836)  293; 
(1840)  301;  (1844)  317; 
(1848)  343;  (1852)  362; 
(1856)  374;  (1860)  398. 

Electoral  tie,  71.  (See  Elec 
tions.) 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  61. 

Embargo,  112. 

England.     (See  Great  Britain.) 

Equal  Rights  party,  275. 

Erie,  201,  226. 

Europe  (see  Great  Britain, 
France,  Spain,  etc. ;  Mon 
roe  doctrine),  203. 

Everett,  Edward,  371,  387. 

Farmers.     (See  Pioneer  Life.) 

Federalism  (see  Parties),  12; 
downfall  of,  79;  blue  lights, 
153;  the  Hartford  Conven 
tion,  153,  235,  251. 

Ferdinand  VII,   170. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  295;  Presi 
dent,  352;  character,  360. 

Financial  Distress  (1819-20), 
181;  (1837)  293. 


Fisheries,   American,    133. 

Florida,  178,  326. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  393. 

Foote,  Henry  S.,  234. 

Force  bill  (1833),  255. 

Fort  Dearborn,  249. 

Fort  Sumpter,  392. 

Fourier,  246. 

France,  contest  with  England, 
51;  spoliations,  222.  (See 
Bonaparte.) 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  9,  35,  239. 

Free  Soilers.  (See  Republi 
cans.) 

Fremont,  John  C,  372. 

French  spoliations,  222. 

Fugitive  slaves,  307.  (See 
Slavery.) 

Fulton,  Robert,  201,  269. 

Gadsby's  Tavern,  197,  228. 

Gaines,  Gen.  Edmund  P.,  327. 

Gallatin,   Albert,   63,   96. 

Garibaldi,  Joseph,  242. 

Garrison,   William  Lloyd,  280. 

Genet,  Citizen,  51. 

Georgia,  185. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  78. 

Ghent,  peace  of,  149. 

Girard,   Stephen,  50,  246. 

Gold,  California,  345. 

Granger,  Francis,  295. 

Great  Britain,  contest  with 
France,  51 ;  grievances 
against,  52;  Jay's  mission 
and  treaty,  52;  Napoleon, 
in;  war  against,  145;  peace 
at  Ghent,  149;  relations 
(1817-31),  203. 

Greece,    242. 

Greeley,  Horace,  295,  334. 


412 


INDEX 


Greenleaf,  69. 
Grund,  238. 
Grundy,  Felix,  255. 

Hamilton,     Alexander,     5,     18, 

24,  37,  54,  64,  90;  duel,  93; 

death,  95,  239. 
Hancock,  John,  9,  47. 
Harper,  Robert  G.,  63. 
Harrison,       William       Henry, 

President,    301 ;    death,    302. 
Hartford  Convention,  153,  235, 

251. 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  233. 
Helm,    Peter,    50. 
Henry,   Patrick,  9,   102. 
Hill,  Rowland,  324. 
Holy   Alliance,   203. 
Houston,  Samuel,  371,  385. 
Hudson  River,  201,  243. 
Hull,   Captain   Isaac,   152. 

Illinois,  249,   378,   386. 

Impressment,   104,   145. 

Inauguration  of  Washington, 
17;  of  John  Adams,  59;  of 
Jefferson,  83;  of  Madison, 
136 ;  of  Monroe,  157 ;  of  John 
Quincy  Adams,  214;  of  Jack 
son,  228,  262;  of  Van 
Buren,  293 ;  of  Harrison, 
301 ;  of  Tyler,  304 ;  of  Polk, 
317;  of  Taylor,  343;  of  Fill- 
more,  352;  of  Pierce,  362;  of 
Buchanan,  374. 

Indians,   98,   326. 

Industries,  American,  133,  246. 

Inns,  American,  197,  228. 

Internal  Improvements,  173, 
232,  253- 

Iredell,  Judge  James,  56. 

Irving,    Washington,   243. 


Jackson,  Andrew,  153,  160, 
175,  '191;  President,  228; 
force-bill  message,  255;  sec 
ond  administration,  261 ;  his 
tour,  265;  character,  284; 
Jackson  and  Jefferson,  177, 
291. 

Jay,  John,  9,   15,  70,  89. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  8,  24,  37 ; 
Vice-President,  59,  63,  65, 
70 ;  President,  83 ;  appoint 
ments,  87;  cabinet,  89;  sec 
ond  administration,  104;  re 
tirement,  119;  character,  121, 
177,  239,  291. 

Jeffersonian  Republicans,  165, 
173,  297- 

Jeffersonian,  The,  297. 

Jones,   Captain  Jacob,   152. 

Jones,  James  C,  368. 

Kalorama,  196. 
Kansas-Nebraska      Bill,      363, 

366,  370. 

Kendall,    Amos,    324. 
Kentucky   resolutions,   64,   235. 
King,    Rufus,    383. 
Know-Nothings,   369. 
Knox,  Henry,  15,  18,  24. 
Kossuth,  Louis,  242. 

Lafayette,  32,   165,  211. 

Lane,  Henry  S.,  372. 

La  Plata,  170. 

Lawrence,  Amos  A.,  246. 

Lecompton,  379. 

Liberator,   The,  280. 

Liberty  and  Union,  237. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  334,  335, 
377;  the  Illinois  Debate,  378, 
381;  nomination  of,  389; 


INDEX 


President,  398;  character  of, 

400;  fame  of,  407. 
Livingston,     Edward,     15,     18, 

54,  90,  201. 
Lloyd,  James,   165. 
Loco-Focos,    273. 
Louisiana    purchase,    90,     212, 

239- 
Lundy's  Lane,  326. 

Madison,  James,  5,  63,  65,  96; 
President,  136,  147;  charac 
ter,  154. 

Madrid,  170. 

Maine,  212. 

Manhattan  Island,  243. 

Manners,    American,    243. 

Manufacturers,  American,  132. 

Marbois,  90. 

Marcy,  William  L.,  333. 

Marshall,  John,  78,  158,  212, 
282. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  238. 

Maryland,    196,   212. 

Massachusetts,  12,  212,  239. 

McKean,  Thomas,  54. 

McLean,  John,  282. 

Methodist  Church,  372. 

Mexico,  317,  322,   331. 

Miranda  enterprise,   170. 

Mississippi,  366,    (river),  249. 

Missouri,  187 ;  compromise 
(1820),  189,  365;  repealed, 
367,  383. 

Monroe,  James,  90;  President, 
153.  157,  161,  163,  165;  char 
acter  of,  190;  appearance  of, 
193;  retires,  213. 

Monroe  doctrine,  205. 

Montgomery  Congress,  394. 

Morgan,  William,  255. 


Mormonism,   376. 
Morris,  Robert,  9,  69. 
Muhlenberg,  Frederick  A.,  54, 
56. 

Napoleon.       (See    Bonaparte.) 
Nashville,  355. 
National   Banks,  273. 
Native  Americans,   369.      (See 

Parties.) 

Naturalization  Act,  62. 
Nebraska,  363. 
Negroes.     (See  Slavery.) 
New  Hampshire,  212. 
New  Mexico,  343. 
New  Orleans,  345. 
New  York,  200,  212,  232,  274, 

355- 

Nicholson,   69. 
Non-intercourse,      137.        (See 

Great  Britain.) 
Nullification,      66,      232,      254. 

(See  Disunion.) 

Ohio,  200. 

Orders    in    Council,    116,    138, 

145.     (See  Great  Britain.) 
Ordinance  of  1787,  188,  365. 
Oregon  boundary,  320. 
Osgood,  Samuel,  15. 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  153. 
Otis,  James,  9,  18. 

Paraguay,    170. 

Parties,  political,  origin  of,  9; 
Whig  and  Tory  in  America, 
ii ;  Revolutionary,  12;  Fed 
eral  and  Anti-Federal,  12; 
Republicans,  36;  ultra  Fed 
eralists,  70;  downfall  of 
Federal,  79 ;  War  party,  143 ; 


414 


INDEX 


Democrats,  165;  Jeffersonian 
Republicans,  165 ;  decay  of, 
173 ;  Democratic  Republi 
cans,  173;  new  party  ideals, 
215 ;  National  Republicans, 
253;  Democrats,  273,  277; 
Anti-Masons,  254 ;  Whigs, 
274,  353;  Equal  Rights  par 
ty,  275 ;  downfall  of  Whigs, 
359 ;  New  Party  movements, 
368 ;  Native  American, 
Know-Nothing  Party,  369 ; 
the  Republican  party,  372, 
373,  388;  Democracy  per 
verted,  375,  386;  Chicago 
Convention,  386. 

Pearce,  James  A.,  368. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  320. 

Pennsylvania,  200,  232,  239. 

Perceval  Cabinet,   138. 

Perry,  Oliver  H.,  152,  179. 

Personal  liberty  laws,  307. 

Philadelphia,  45,  355,  370,  372. 

Pickering,  Timothy,  61. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  359;  Presi 
dent,  362,  375. 

Pinckney,  Charles,  70. 

Pioneer  life,  40. 

Pittsburg,  372. 

Polk,  James  K.,  311;  Presi 
dent,  317;  character,  339. 

Population  of  United  States 
(1783),  3;  (1820)  199. 

Portugal,    170,    197. 

Potomac,  396. 

Pottawatomies,   249. 

President.  (See  Elections;  In 
auguration.) 

Princeton  College,  8. 

Provoost,    Bishop    Samuel,   20. 

Public  disorders,  279. 


Quincy,    Josiah,    141. 
Quitman,  John  A.,  384. 

Railways,  268. 

Randolph,   Edmund,  24,    139. 

Randolph,  John,  141,  215. 

Religion  in  the  United  States, 
369,  370,  372,  376. 

Republicans,  36;  National  Jef 
fersonian,  165,  253;  New 
Republican  party  of  1856, 
372,  386.  (See  Parties.) 

Revolutionary  parties,  12. 

Rhett,  Robert  B.,  382. 

Rocky  Mountains,   250. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  370. 

Rush,  Richard,  47,  203,  355. 

Rutledge,  John,  54. 

Schuyler,  General  Philip  J.,  6. 

Scott,  Dred,  380,  383. 

Scott,  Winfield,  325,  326,  359, 
396. 

Search,  right  of,  104. 

Secession.      (See  Disunion.) 

Sedition  act,  62. 

Seminole  war,  177,  178,  326. 

Sergeant,  John,  355. 

Seward,  William  H.,  295,  347, 
366,  381,  388. 

Single-Term  Theory,  308. 

Slavery:  abolition  memorials, 
35;  trade  abolished,  108 ; 
condition  of,  in  1819.  182; 
Missouri  controversy,  187 ; 
Garrison  and  The  Liberator, 
280;  slavery  and  freedom, 
307;  admission  of  Texas, 
312;  Kansas-Nebraska  plot, 
367;  Dred  Scott  decision, 
380;  new  dogmas,  383. 

Small-pox,  47. 


INDEX 


Smithsonian   Institute,   324. 

South   America,   204. 

South  Carolina,   185,  212,  232, 

233,  239;  in  1833,  257,  391. 
Sovereignty,  squatter,  365. 
Spanish     America,     revolution 

in,   169,  242. 
Spanish  coin,  181. 
Spoils  of  office,  231. 
Squatter  sovereignty,  365. 
Stanton,   Edwin   M.,   398. 
State  rights,  251,  273. 
States.     (See  Several  States.) 
Steamboats,  201,  269. 
Stephens,    Alexander    H.,    347, 

368,  382. 

Stephenson,   George,   269. 
St.  Louis,  250. 
Steuben,   Baron,    18. 
Stoddert,    Benjamin,    78. 
Story,   Joseph,   282. 
Supreme  Court,  282. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  283. 

Tariff  act  (1824),  207;  (1828), 
232,  252;  reduction  (1845), 
321. 

Taylor,  John  W.,  65. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  325 ;  Presi 
dent,  343;  death,  350. 

Tecumseh,  325. 

Telegraph,  311,  325. 

Tennessee,  176,  232,  365. 

Territories,  99.  (See  Different 
Territories.) 

Texas,  annexation,  310,  312, 
323- 

Thompson,  Jacob,  393. 

Thomson,  Charles,  16. 

Tippecanoe,  battle  of,   139. 

Tompkins,  Daniel  D.,  157. 


Toombs,  Robert,  349,  368. 

Tories,   n.      (See  Parties.) 

Treasury,  independent  (sub-), 
293- 

Treaty,  Jay's,  52;  for  Louis 
iana,  90;  of  Ghent,  149;  as 
to  Texas,  Mexico,  etc.,  310, 
322,  331 ;  Ashburton,  315 ; 
Oregon,  320. 

Trimble  amendment,   188. 

Trollope,   Mrs.,  240,  247. 

Twiggs,  General  David  E., 
393- 

Tyler,     John,     President,     304, 

305,  314. 

United     States     (1809),     127; 

(1820)    199;    (1831)  238. 
Utah,  344,  375- 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  Vice- 
President,  262 ;  President, 
293;  character,  297. 

Van  Ness,  John  P.,  196. 

Venezuela,  170. 

Virginia,  64,  200,  235,  273. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  342. 

War.  (See  Army,  Indians, 
Mexico,  Navy.) 

Ward,  Artemus,  267,  405. 

Washington,  George,  4,  9,  14, 
15,  407;  President,  17;  char 
acter,  26 ;  farewell  address, 
57,  59;  death,  67,  239. 

Washington  City,  68;  (1821) 
195;  (1861)  396. 

Watts,  James,  269. 

Webster,  Daniel,  165,  208,  211, 
235,  355;  death,  358. 

Weed,   Thurlow,  295,   297. 


4i6 


INDEX 


West,  the  great,  249. 

Whigs,  12,  273,  275,  353 ;  down 
fall,  359.  (See  Parties.) 

White  House,  101,  396. 

Wilkinson,  General  Arthur, 
106,  327. 

Wilmot,  David,  332,  333;  pro 
viso,  364. 

Winthrop,  Robert  C,  338. 


Wirt,  William,  107,  204. 
Wise,  Henry  A.,  303,  385. 
Wolcott,    Oliver,    69. 
Woodbury,   Levi,   355. 
Wright,   Silas,  295,  311. 

Yellow  fever,  47. 
Yellowstone  River,  250. 
Young,  Brigham,  376. 


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